A Different Motive
by Mendeia
Summary: The Death-Knell of Silence Part 6: An ancient evil is stalking the galaxy and it has Donatello in its power. Desperate, Leatherhead, Zayton, and Mortu turn to the only warriors they can trust to risk their lives to save him - the Hamato Clan. Old and new family bonds are tried, and tragedy waits in the wings. What will be the price to save Don - and who will pay it?
1. Decisions

Hello all!

Well, I'm still somewhat sick. My voice has been reduced to squeaks and whispers, and I cough like there's a thunderstorm trying to crawl out of my lungs, but my head is finally clear, so I'll take it!

I really love all of you readers, by the way. You've kept me wonderful company this week with your kindness and your speculations and your support. I almost feel bad repaying you with this chapter. Because it probably isn't what any of you thought you'd be seeing this week.

Since I haven't mentioned it before, here's a bit of meta-nerdity for you. When I originally specced this story out in the end of 2015 (the entire thing was written starting in December 2015 and finished in August 2016), I vaguely associated each of the 8 different Acts with an elemental power. Sometimes they turned out to be a whole lot more on point than I expected. (Poke me if you want to know more.) Anyway, here's what we have so far:

Act 1 = Earth  
Act 2 = Air  
Act 3 = Fire  
Act 4 = Water  
Act 5 = Metal

Which leads me to this – fair warning, my friends. The elemental power I associated with Act 6 is Chaos.

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 1: Decisions

* * *

. " _In more distressing news, Astrocyte Hamato Donatello has now been missing for a full rhythm and authorities fear for his safety. The young terrapin joined the Science Institute approximately three flows ago and has been instrumental in advancing our engineering and telexistence science, publishing multiple studies and presenting his unique view of science in a public broadcast that has won him acclaim throughout the Collective.  
_. " _However, while traveling off-world, Astrocyte Donatello vanished, leaving only his ship and a few personal items behind. Sources close to the Science Institute as well as the Legacy Guardians suspect foul play. Authorities ask that, should anyone sight Donatello, to please contact the Science Institute or the High Council with any details that might aid in his safe recovery."_

Professor Honn'i'kedt looked up from the modified computer terminal as Leatherhead rose from his seat. "Now, my friend, please do not do anything drastic. I do not wish to have to replace any furniture or equipment again. It takes time away from my primary focus."

Leatherhead was growling low and deep in his chest, his eyes shifting between rounded and slitted, but he clenched his hands tightly.

"I will do no harm."

But nothing could calm his rage. A full Utrom rhythm, forty days of worrying and consuming fear, and Donatello was still lost to them!

Zayton flicked his thoughts through the Collective's virtual traffic, checking for any of the various keywords and strings of code he had marked as potentially helpful. Sometimes when the Utrom public broadcasts were sent, they generated additional chatter which could produce leads to locate their missing friend. But, unfortunately, while it was helpful to know how many beings were concerned for Donatello and hoped he would be found, that was cold comfort against a lack of actual sightings or clues.

"I appreciate Mortu's professionalism," Zayton said after a moment, "but I fear his duty to maintain secrecy is now hampering our ability to uncover accurate information. If the Collective does not know where they should be looking, they stand very little chance of helping us locate Donatello."

"What can be so important in that one area of space that he cannot even tell us the true coordinates where Donatello's vessel was found?" Leatherhead asked as he had so many times. "And what does it matter where? Donatello could be halfway across the galaxy from there by now!"

"And yet," Zayton said, striving for a calming tone against Leatherhead's rising anger, "perhaps this evasion is to our advantage. As you say, Donatello could be anywhere. If we concentrated the search, perhaps one who could otherwise find him might not be looking."

"Of course." Leatherhead gave a visceral sigh, forcing control back over his emotions. "We must ensure that all possible allies are prepared so that when Donatello contacts them they will be able to lead us to him."

It was an argument they had had many, many times with Mortu since the discovery of Donatello's abandoned, damaged ship. But Mortu had never wavered, not once. He had only given them his oath that he would tell them the full truth if it became relevant, but not before.

Leatherhead had not spoken to Mortu for a quarter-rhythm. It was only after several discussions with Krian'daren and Zayton that he was able to forgive the delicate position Mortu must be facing; on the one hand, he was both friend and guardian to Donatello, but on the other, he still served the Collective as trusted member of the Secrete Obscura.

However, the fact that Mortu had to maintain any secrecy at all only reinforced their paranoia and terror on behalf of their lost friend.

Leatherhead looked away. "I will check the Institute system again. It has been several hours. There may be a message."

Zayton spoke quietly. "My friend, if Donatello were able to seek us out in any way, especially one as easy as sending an email, he would have done so by now. I fear we must assume he cannot. Or perhaps he does not wish to."

Leatherhead's growl intensified, though his expression grew no more savage. "I will assume _that_ is not a possibility until I hear it from Donatello himself. And I will _also_ continue to assume that he will find a way to contact us as soon as he is able."

The door opened and Mortu entered, his expression drawn and tense. Zayton and Leatherhead barely acknowledged him.

"But if his depression returned unexpectedly, given the state we found him in back on Earth, he might…"

"Even then, he would not _disappear_. I will not believe that Donatello, my friend and brother, has... _succumbed_...until someone provides me with incontrovertible proof to that fact. Without so much as a sighting of him, I will not surrender my faith in him so easily."

"It is possible," Mortu spoke up slowly, "that such has now been found."

"What do you mean?" Leatherhead turned to him, snapping his jaw.

Mortu closed his eyes. "As the most recent report was being broadcast, something was uncovered by my information gathering program: a sighting submitted anonymously. I have checked its source. I believe it is genuine."

"Please calm yourself, Leatherhead." Honn'i'kedt put a hand on Leatherhead's. "We must see it, but we need your mind clear so you can assess it with us."

Leatherhead nodded, his jaw moving as he fought to quiet his agitation. After several minutes of breathing and silence, he sighed and his shoulders drooped.

"You may proceed, my friend."

Mortu shifted in air to project an image from his hovering disc.

"Understand that what I am about to show you is, in the strictest sense, a breach of my responsibility to the Secrete Obscura. However, even the High Council agreed you have the right to know."

The visual was a little fuzzy, as though recorded by a sensor that had been damaged. It showed what was some form of automated docking station for a ship like those common on colonies and space-stations outside the Collective, particularly nearest the Federation. After a moment of stillness, a bulkhead was breached by a violent explosion.

A small portion of an enormous ship entered through the hole. The ship appeared to be a fusion of Utrom bio-technology with something else, something older and far more angular than even that favored by the Triceratons. The ship cast out tentacle-like mooring lines, some of which held it in place while others began removing items from the docking station including banks of controls and raw materials piled to one side.

As the ship broke a wider hole and acquired items farther into the dock, it drew nearer to the sensor. A form was visible through one of the windows. Mortu carefully enhanced the image.

It showed a hazy green figure with a purple band across its head. The shape of a terrapin was unmistakeable.

Mortu paused, pained for a moment, before he said, "This ship is known to the Collective. It houses the Architect."

"And who or what is that?" Professor Honn'i'kedt asked.

"The Architect...is the being who perpetrated the attack on the Utrom colony, the one you...well, you recall it. It was in this same area we found Donatello's ship. I believe there can be no doubt now that the Architect is the one who…" He could not quite finish, but he had said enough.

Zayton actually took a step backwards. "It cannot be."

Leatherhead closed his eyes and gulped in a ragged breath, fighting the memory of Utrom bodies and lifeless eyes. "No. Not Donatello."

Mortu ceased projecting and looked between the pair of them, the frightened, grieving silence thick. When he spoke, his voice was low but firm.

"This is far worse than we feared. I believe...we have no choice. We must attempt to retrieve them."

"Why?" Zayton asked. "Why cannot the Secrete…?"

"Because we cannot," Mortu said with a mix of despair and rage. "The Council has forbidden it. They are not yet willing to risk more lives on such an errand."

"But will they come for him? After all that has happened? If our attempt does nothing but continue to waste time, I would rather seek out help from other allies. Perhaps Traximus."

Mortu waved a foreleg. "The Triceratons will not act against the Architect, not while they are still attempting to rebuild after their war with the Federation. Their resources are already strained."

"But Traximus himself would come," Zayton insisted. "After Donatello's history with them, the Republic may even support his independent action."

Mortu frowned. "Even with the Architect involved, the Utrom Collective cannot risk endangering our tentative relationship with the reformed Triceraton Senate, to say nothing of sharing data which is meant to be secret. I agree with you that Traximus would come, but we cannot ask it of him. Not even for Donatello."

Professor Honn'i'kedt made a grinding noise with his vocal processor, the closest he could get to an annoyed huff. "But to put our faith in _them…_ "

Leatherhead opened his eyes and looked at them. "We can but try. If they refuse us, we will have lost nothing but some time, and though I am as eager to prevent any delay as you, we must not make any mis-steps in our haste. The risk is too great."

Zayton dropped his hands and gave a robotic shrug. "Very well. But if they prove false again, I shall not restrain my urge to give them a thorough piece of my mind!"

In spite of everything, Leatherhead huffed a small laugh. "If it is warranted, my friend, I fear I may do far worse."

"Then let us prepare for our trip. I assume we will utilize Donatello's own method?" Mortu asked.

Zayton and Leatherhead both turned to him. "I would not expect you to come, Mortu," Zayton said.

The Utrom's wide mouth drew back in a fierce, Earth scowl. "Donatello is my friend and I am also one of his appointed guardians. And what has happened to him is at least as much my fault as anyone's. Of course I will be a part of this."

"But the High Council?" Leatherhead asked.

"If necessary, I will resign my position. But they will permit me to do this much as long as I go without involving either the Guardians or any other Utrom under my command. To have Donatello missing is upsetting more than just those of us closest to him, and the Council is also quite nervous about the circumstances of his disappearance, but they will not risk Homeworld security any more than strictly necessary by my involvement."

"And you are something of a rebel. I believe you miss living on 'the wild side,' to use an Earth phrase," Zayton said.

Mortu gave an Utrom eye-roll. "As you wish."

Leatherhead took a deep breath, willing calm to remain where his anger wished to grow. "How soon do we leave?"

"I will need a day to arrange matters before I can risk an absence, since no matter the outcome I will not be returning to my post until Donatello has been retrieved safely. And I will also use the time to prepare a robo-organic body for myself and an appropriate skin." He glanced to Zayton. "I can acquire a skin for you, as well."

"Only if it will not cause undue delay," the Professor said. "Too much time has already passed. I will not force Donatello to wait for the sake of not frightening those…" But he stopped before he could say the unkind words he was thinking.

"I will go at once. Let me know if you have any other requirements for our journey." But before Mortu turned to float away, he paused. "I believe it would be unwise to share our intent with anyone. Though Donatello has won himself many allies here, in addition to preventing a Homeworld panic, I do not wish to argue with those who might attempt to join our expedition."

Leatherhead raised a questioning eye-ridge at him.

Mortu sighed. "There are too many scientists too interested in Donatello's trans-dimensional work as it is. I do not wish this to become a scientific exploration when it should be the start of a rescue mission."

"Ah." Leatherhead nodded. "Agreed. Only those whose priority is Donatello's safety should join us." He glanced to Honn'i'kedt. "And if _they_ are not included in such, we shall not lose time convincing them."

Zayton nodded. "Indeed. And Krian'daren?"

"Krian'daren would come if I asked," Mortu said, "but I will not. She is too valuable to risk, especially if the Architect really is involved. Moreover, we should leave someone here in case Donatello does make contact."

"She will not appreciate this," Leatherhead said, a rueful smile tugging at his mouth.

"No, she will not. However, while Krian'daren is many wonderful things, but she is not equipped for combat. And." Mortu's eyes flashed. "For all that she is mother-figure to Donatello, he is _ours_ first _._."

"Our tuastum," Zayton said. "Our friend."

"Our brother." Leatherhead's conviction grew solid strength enough to rival the Heart.

Mortu looked between them, never so grateful for this odd little family. "Yes. And no matter what _they_ decide, _we_ will bring him home."

-==OOO==-

"Help! Someone! Stop them! Help!"

A pair of figures ducked around a corner.

"Man, you run slower than that old lady."

"Shut up, Wax!"

"If you can't learn to run faster, you ain't never gonna make it as a Dragon!"

"I said shut up!"

The younger of the two, carrying a large purse with a now-broken strap, skidded into an alleyway, leaning against the brick and panting for breath.

Beside him, Waxer sniggered. "Rookie."

"Hey, I got the purse, didn't I?"

"C'mon. Let's go show 'Face. You're gonna cost 'im some money, though. He had twenty on you bailin' on me."

The kid glared. "Shows maybe he ain't as smart as he thinks."

"He ain't," Waxer agreed with a shrug, "but without Hun, he's all we got. So, you comin or what?"

As the pair darted from the alleyway across the street towards the current Purple Dragons' hideout, neither noticed the shadows looming above. At a silent signal, three shadows broke from the rest and climbed to the rooftop.

Raph kicked a brick. "I can't believe they're recruiting again. Don't they ever know when to quit?"

"Apparently not," Leo said. "But I bet we can dissuade them if we hurry."

Mikey grinned. "Yeah! It's been too long since we've given anybody a good, old-fashioned turtle beat-down!"

All three turtles paused for a moment.

Leo drew in a breath. "Let's go."

He led his brothers from the roof to the next, his sharp eyes picking out the fleeing pair of Dragons easily. Following them and staying hidden was effortless, second-nature, and gave him no excuse not to think.

 _It's not the same. Don should be here. Should be beside us._

 _We fight as four, not three._

 _And forget about planning anything elaborate._

 _Don, where are you? Will you ever come home?_

Leo would have punched that question if it had form.

 _He'll come, at least to check in. He promised. April said he would call her and Casey about five months from when he left, which was sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas._

 _But he's late_ , nagged at him.

 _Not necessarily. Five months from Christmas would be the end of May. We're only at the beginning of May now. April was just checking in, in case Don came back early. Otherwise she wouldn't even have tried calling until this week._

 _It's been a year since Usagi came to get us. A year we mostly spent in his world. A year Master Splinter spent in and out of illness. A year Mikey spent mostly on his own in that village and Raph spent wandering. And I spent..._

 _It went so fast._

 _And now we've been here less than two months and it's crawling by._

 _This must be how it felt to Donnie._

 _Shell._

 _There's nothing I can ever do to make it up to him._

 _But if he comes back – when, when he comes back – I'll try. I promise._

It was an old internal conversation, and one Leo knew he didn't hold alone. Raph and Mikey, too, counted the days relentlessly, waiting for one where Donatello would make contact with April and they could reach him. Until then, there was nothing to do but _think_.

They'd torn apart Leatherhead's old lair, and as much of their own as they dared, but there was nothing to find. A note from Donatello in their lair's instructions made it clear he had deleted and purged every conceivable piece of information so that anyone who managed to get through his defenses into their home would not be able to track either himself or his brothers in any way.

It was thoughtful, and sensible, and _completely_ frustrating.

 _For once, Donnie, couldn't you have been a little less thorough?_

Leo jolted his thoughts back to the present as the Purple Dragons they were chasing ducked into a boarded-up shop. He halted their charge on the roof across the street.

"What's the plan?" Mikey asked.

"I'm going to go around the back and try to sneak in. You two take the roof. There's gotta be a vent or a skylight or something."

"And then," Raph rumbled, low and dark, "we kick some shell."

Leo nodded. Normally, he was against just barging into enemy strongholds to start a fight, but the Purple Dragons had gone way, way too far. They'd burned out Casey and April's home, had driven them away. And they had attacked Donatello again and again from what April said, never letting up, always outnumbering him, making his every step on the surface potentially deadly.

That had to be answered for – and tonight was the night.

Leo glanced at Raph and Mikey. _Looks like I'm not the only one more than ready to go. They've been waiting for this chance for a week as much as I have. Maybe this'll help us all get rid of some of our pent-up frustration. We're never going to fix this family if we're all wound up tighter than the gears on the new BattleShell. Or Raph's bike. Or the other vehicles Don made for us._

 _Oh Donnie._

"Come on. Let's do this."

-==OOO==-

Splinter had not intended to fall asleep. He knew he was dreaming, no longer meditating, and he was angry with himself for the lapse.

 _But perhaps such was inevitable. As my sons have returned to themselves, the lack of Donatello has become oppressive, a weight upon all our souls._

 _If they have, any of them, slept more than I in the last few days, I would be very surprised indeed._

 _Still, it has been many years since sleep took me from meditation._

 _My soul is wearied more than I realized._

Before him, Splinter became aware of a plain of brown and yellow, like wheat reflecting a glorious sunset.

A familiar form stood amidst the waves of the tall grasses.

"Donatello!"

Splinter's missing son turned to look over a shoulder, but his face was blank, almost slack. He looked forward again and started to walk towards the sun setting upon the horizon.

"My son!"

Splinter began to run.

Donatello's steps carried him farther and faster than Splinter's no matter how he raced after his lost son.

And Splinter became aware that the sun was not in the distant sky, but rather a fireball resting on the ground, a hungry inferno enveloping all that drew near.

"My son! Stop!"

Donatello did not look back even when he let himself be carried into the flames.

As Splinter continued to run, the sun rose from the ground and returned to its place in the sky.

"Donatello!"

The farther away the sun sailed, the darker the sky and the plain below it. Splinter could feel the integrity of the dream fading as he lapsed back to a light sleep.

 _No. There is truth here. I must not lose it! I must maintain whatever connection drew me here that I understand its meaning before it is too late!_

He fought the dark for several more moments.

Until he was startled completely awake by the voices of his sons in the main room of the lair, which caused him to lose the final remnants of the dream.

"It's better than they deserve, the punks!"

"Raph, calm down."

"This _is_ me bein' calm, Fearless."

"Dude, he's right about that. This is _Raph_ we're talking about. If he were any more calm, he'd be, like, asleep!"

"Okay. Fair enough. And I understand – I really do. But we can't just kill a bunch of kids who might not even have done anything."

"Kill them, no. But DragonFace and the rest of the big dogs got away!"

"And we'll get them next time, I'm sure of it. For now, though, they've gone to ground and we might as well do the same."

"Hey, at least we ruined Mohawk's stupid hair. Now they'll have to call him Baldy. Or maybe Patches."

"Heh. That was a good one, Mikey. I'mma call him Patches from now on."

"Leo! Quick! Make sure Raph's not running a fever or something!"

All three chuckled. It wasn't the laughter that had once been so common, full and contented, but while it carried the shadows of their uncertainty, it at least echoed with the brotherhood they had almost lost.

A burst of intuition, of premonition, lifted Splinter from his place on his mat as though he had been pulled by a string.

Splinter emerged from his room suddenly, cracking his walking stick against the doorframe. "My sons!" he called.

Leo, Raph, and Mikey ran to him, fearing the worst. Their father had been meditating almost without stopping for days in an attempt to reach Don after a particularly vivid dream in which he felt sure he had connected with his lost son for an instant. However, Splitner's uncharacteristic agitation now was almost more frightening than the fact that he had not succeeded in finding Don since.

"I sense we will soon have visitors...and perhaps answers," he said.

"What do you…?" But before Mikey could even finish the question, a light bloomed in the middle of the lair – a very familiar portal.

"Usagi?" Leo called, wondering why or even how Usagi could have summoned an interdimensional doorway the likes of which they hadn't seen since leaving Turtle Prime.

But the form that emerged from the portal was not the ronin rabbit who had not been to visit since returning the last of their belongings. Instead, it was an unknown human, followed by another unknown human shorter than the first, and a hulking form bringing up the rear before the portal vanished. But this last was familiar.

"Leatherhead!"

The first human looked up, his expression falling into a grim smile. "Greetings. We apologize for our unexpected entrance."

"I know that voice!" Raph said. "You're Mister Mortu!"

"You are correct," Mortu said, peeling away the clothing the suit wore to reveal his true face in the robo-organic abdomen. "And he is also one known to you, though not in this form."

The shorter human's face did not move naturally – in fact, it barely moved at all even as the mouth opened slightly. "I am Professor Honn'i'kedt."

"It is a great relief to see you, Professor." Master Splinter stepped out from around his surprised sons. "If you have come, you must have information about Donatello. We have heard nothing since finding the letter written by yourself on my son's behalf."

The three newly-arrived exchanged glances. It was Mortu who looked back at them, his false human face betraying no expression at all and his Utrom face thoroughly inscrutable.

"Does Donatello...interest you again?"

Splinter's tail lashed. "My son was _always_ of great importance to my heart. That did not change."

The Professor's blank face turned to the turtles and his voice held pure contempt. " _Perhaps_ that is true. But such cannot be said of your sons, Master Splinter."

All three turtles shied away from that. Leo gulped and said, "We...we made a mistake. A horrible mistake."

Leatherhead looked piercingly at them. "You little realize how horrible, I fear. If not for myself and Zayton, your brother would…" But he stopped.

"Clearly much has happened of which we stand in ignorance," Splinter said. "But the only question that truly matters is this – where is my son?"

"That is why we have come," Mortu said. "We believe Donatello to be in grave peril and we do not know if we can save him alone."

"What kind of peril?" Raph demanded, a sick feeling growing in his stomach.

"How'd you even get here?" Mikey asked.

"We traveled from the Homeworld to the dimension inhabited by Usagi," Leatherhead said. "When we learned you had already left from there, we merely followed the coordinates to your lair."

"Sit down. This will take some explanation," the Professor said, his face still betraying nothing. He moved away, Leatherhead and Mortu following, heading to where the turtles and Splinter could face them from the living room couches. The turtles and Splinter sat down gingerly, as if afraid even to brace themselves.

Mortu and Leatherhead spoke briefly in a language unknown to the turtles or Splinter. It was Leatherhead who began the explanation, returning to English.

"Months ago, shortly after he was last in contact with you, Professor Honn'i'kedt and I journeyed to the Utrom Homeworld with Donatello. There was no life for him here, and it would have been dangerous for him to remain."

"Dangerous?" Mikey asked.

Leatherhead's snout twitched, but he otherwise ignored the question.

"Donatello was well-suited to life among the Utrom with us," he continued. "He was able to study a number of different facets of science, as well as certain martial techniques passed down through the Guardians, and became rather well-known through his multiple publications and forums."

"Forums?" Leo frowned. "Donnie was giving speeches?"

"Donatello has become a leading authority in the Utrom Collective in several disciplines and a much sought-after resource," Mortu put in.

"Wait," Raph frowned. "I know Donnie's a smart turtle and all, but how the shell did he get that popular that fast? Did he go on Utrom TV or something?"

"He did, but that is not the only reason for his acclaim. You forget that the use of the teleportal device results in a skewed relationship with temporal reality," the Professor said. "When I first arrived on Earth with you after being rescued by the Utrom's own teleportal, our journey together had lasted three of what you called weeks, but here on Earth it was a matter of hours. By your reckoning, how long has it been since our departure?"

Leo gulped. "About...four months? Maybe five? We weren't exactly sure when you left."

Leatherhead spoke up. "Regardless, for us, and for Donatello, he has been a member of the Utrom Collective for over nineteen Earth months." He added before the three turtles before him could react, "But we are not here because of his accomplishments."

"Please continue," Splinter said, but his own eyes were wide at the implication of the amount of time his son had been alone.

Mortu waved a foreleg. "Approximately one rhythm ago by our count, about six weeks as you would consider it, Donatello left the Utrom Homeworld on a scientific errand. We did not realize it at the time, but his destination was one we would not have let him attempt to reach because it is...very unsafe. However, in a message he encoded for me, he explained that he felt he had no choice but to make this perilous journey alone for he did not wish to endanger anyone else."

"Oh Donnie…" Raph whispered.

"I take it," Splinter said, "that Donatello found himself in some sort of trouble."

Leatherhead nodded and swallowed thickly.

It was Mortu who admitted, "Donatello has been abducted by the Architect."

"And who is that?" Leo asked. Inside, he was already burning. _Abducted. After a year and a half on his own. Shell. This is all my fault._

 _But whoever this Architect is, they will be sorry they ever even thought of touching my brother!_

"Allow me," came the Professor's clipped voice. Without inflection, he recited the facts that Mortu had finally shared about the being who had done such horrible things – and who now held Donatello in its power.

"The Architect is a bio-organic artificial intelligence. It was originally discovered in the wreckage of a long-dead civilization at the very edge of what was then the known galaxy. Initially, we believe the Architect was something akin to an evolved artificial maintenance process pervading something similar to the internet on Earth. But over millennia isolated on a lifeless world, it became fully sentient and what you might call unbalanced.

"When the first Utrom explorers encountered the Architect, they uploaded it into their ship in order to preserve what they saw as a viable form of life that deserved the chance to leave its own dead world. However, the Architect turned on them. It infused its being into the Utrom ship and murdered the crew. Then it vanished for centuries, existing as something of a phantom. Stories were spread of an Utrom ghost ship that would attack and cripple other vessels and leave those members of the passengers and crew who survived the encounter in near-vegetative states."

Leatherhead spoke up again. "A few years before the Utrom trapped on Earth returned home, the Architect emerged from its shadowy existence. What had been rumor was quickly confirmed as fact by the Secrete Obscura, a covert martial force of the High Council."

Mortu sighed. "The Architect's ship was recorded attacking a research expedition on the edge of the Utrom Collective. Of the scientists we later found alive, all had suffered extreme memory loss and profound cognitive damage, scarring similar to that we had seen from use of the Triceraton mind probe. We concluded that the Architect, for unknown reasons, was attempting to gain some sort of information or intelligence."

The Professor took up the explanation. "Since then, the Homeworld has had many reports of attacks on other species throughout the galaxy as well as Utrom outposts and ships." He paused. Then, "Donatello had been investigating the scene of one such recent attack when he vanished."

"We did not know he was going there," Leatherhead said. "We did not even know he had acquired the intelligence to identify the location. But...the most recent attack...it had a profound impact upon all of us. I believe...Donatello felt moved to try to prevent another before more lives could be lost."

Mortu's humanoid forehead began to emit a glow and a projected image appeared. "This is the footage we recovered only a few days ago. This is the Architect's ship breaking into a space-dock. And here…"

The turtles did not need Mortu to enhance the image to know that they were seeing Donatello through the window of the ship that was stealing from and destroying the dock around it.

"What does this mean, Mister Mortu?" Splinter asked, masterfully controlling his voice.

"We don't know," Mortu said. "As far as we can determine, the Architect has never taken prisoners before. All its other confirmed victims were found either dead or irreparably damaged. But we fear whatever fate awaits Donatello the longer he is in the power of the Architect."

"And as the incidence of attacks has been increasing lately, particularly in our part of the galaxy, the Utrom Collective may be forced to launch an attack against the Architect if it continues its actions," Leatherhead said. "If we cannot free Donatello from the Architect before the Collective chooses to strike, he may not survive the battle."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Leo asked, pushing to his feet. "We're going to find this Architect and get our brother out of there! No matter _what_ it takes."

Leatherhead, Mortu, and the Professor exchanged wary looks. Their stillness and silence in the wake of Leo's declaration cast a chill across the group.

Raph stood, too. "That _is_ why you came here, right? So we'd help you spring Donnie?"

"Yes," Leatherhead said. "However…" But he trailed off.

The Professor turned to face them head-on, his expressionless mask as cold as his words.

"While we three are less-well-equipped to engage in infiltration or combat than yourselves, we have not yet exhausted our allies who may be of help. Undoubtedly you are the most skilled of our options, but you are also in no small way responsible for Donatello's deplorable state before we brought him to the Utrom."

He paused. Then he spoke with a voice that, had it not been mechanical, might have trembled.

"I would rather lose Donatello to the Architect than permit you to inflict such pain upon him again."

His words fell like a bomb.

Into the shocked silence, Mikey's voice rose, small and scared. "What _did_ happen to Donnie?"

"I'm not sure it's any of your business," Mortu said.

Splinter's face darkened and he gripped his walking stick tightly enough to crack it, but he kept his voice composed. "He is _my son_. Whatever our crimes against him, whatever our mistakes, _Hamato_ Donatello is my son and his welfare is _forever_ my business."

Then Splinter let out a breath and his expression crumpled.

"But I can see that when this family abandoned him, you did not. Perhaps...he would no longer choose to trust us with this."

"Sensei!" Leo objected. "They _have_ to tell us! Don's our _brother_!"

Splinter's eyes held grief as he turned to Leo. "If Donatello himself would object to our knowledge, if he no longer wishes to have us for his family, they must respect his decision."

Leatherhead lifted a hand and spoke in a low voice.

"Because I will not betray Donatello's privacy, let me say only as much as is a matter of public record. When Donatello first joined the Collective, he voluntarily submitted himself for rigorous psychological assessment and remediation, as well as some direct cognitive therapy – what you might call very advanced brain surgery. Donatello's emotional state when he left the Earth was such that the best Utrom doctors were not certain he would make a complete recovery. As to whether or not he has...well, only he knows for sure, but his progress has been demonstrably significant."

"Why did Don need brain surgery?" Mikey asked through a dry, tight throat.

"To repair the extensive cranial damage caused by a combination of multiple untreated concussions, scarring from the use of the Triceraton mind-probe, and a certain amount of trauma left over from the Outbreak virus and the poison from the other dimension," Leatherhead said. "But these were merely the physical symptoms. Donatello's psychological injuries were no less severe, caused by…"

But he stopped. It was clear to him from the stricken expressions before him that Donatello's family knew well the source of his pain.

Mortu spoke up, his tone almost gentle. "It is difficult to divide the stressors on Donatello's psyche as a result of his emotional struggles from the actual, physical devastation his brain experienced. Even Utrom science cannot say where his broken heart may have stopped and his injured mind continued. We did try to heal both, however."

"And we have been thus far successful," the Professor, however, spoke sharply. "I will not permit anyone to undo that healing, even you. Perhaps _especially_ you."

Raph's fists were so tight he thought for sure he would break his own knuckles. He looked up at the Fugitoid's disguise. "And what gives _you_ the right to decide if we're good enough for Don or not?"

Before the Professor could answer, Mortu stepped between them. "Under Utrom law, Donatello is a tuastum, a juvenile, and when he entered our society formally, he did so as an orphan. For as long as he is an underage citizen without any family, the Utrom Collective retains formal custody. As it stands, Leatherhead, Professor Honn'i'kedt, and I are his legal guardians."

Leo swallowed, his head swimming, and he turned to Leatherhead. "You've...you've been like family to us for so long, Leatherhead. Do you really think we'd...hurt Donnie?"

"My friend," Leatherhead's voice rumbled low and dangerously soft, "you already have."

Mikey made a sound like a choked off sob. But Splinter turned to Mortu.

"You would not have come to us at all if you did not intend for us to help you in some way. What can we say that will convince you?"

"An explanation would help," Mortu said honestly. "Leatherhead is inclined to trust you, to believe your behavior was rooted in something unknown even to Donatello at the time. Professor Honn'i'kedt is not so forgiving, but he, too, would have said before recent events that he did not think Donatello could be safer anywhere than with you who are his family. If you can explain your actions, we will be able to decide how to proceed."

Leo jumped on it. "It was Usagi's dimension. It...did something to us. We didn't realize it, but we found out later that when you spend too much time in the wrong dimension, you get warped."

"Like being on drugs," Raph asked. "And when I came back with Donnie the first time, we went through some kind of withdrawal. Every time I went back and forth, it got harder and harder to deal."

Mikey gulped. "It wasn't just Donnie we...forgot. We kinda lost track of everything for a while there."

Splinter lifted his head and stood to his full height. "While the effects were less on myself and apparently on Donatello, my sons speak the truth. They were as one under the influence of dark magic. It is only with our final return to our home that their full senses have returned."

The Professor looked to the others. "It's plausible. Donatello himself evidenced some form of nano-neural impact that could have been caused by the different quantum realities. Perhaps the very damage that he had already sustained left him less vulnerable to contamination."

"But is it enough?" Mortu asked quietly.

Suddenly, Leo moved until he stood before them. Then he dropped to his knees in the deepest of bows, pressing his forehead to the floor.

"I, Hamato Leonardo, swear on my life, my family, and my honor that I will never intentionally hurt my brother Donatello again. I can't undo what happened, but I can try to do better from now on. I will make any vow you ask. I will do anything you want. I _swear_ I won't make this mistake again. Please. Please believe me."

Before anyone else could respond, Splinter moved to Leonardo's side and also fell to his knees. His own forehead touched the floor.

"I accept that my son has been terribly hurt at our hands. And if his decision is to disown us under the laws of your Utrom Collective, I will respect it. But I beg you to permit us to help rescue him. Once Donatello is safe, we will honor whatever choice he makes. But we _must_ ensure his safety."

Behind them, Michelangelo and Raphael were frozen, gaping. Never in their lives had they seen Splinter bow so low to someone. To humble himself completely.

Never had they known their father to be so desperate.

Mortu turned to the Professor. "Are you satisfied?"

The expressionless head nodded. "As much as can be expected. I believe that dimensional instabilities could have exacerbated their behavior and made it unconscionable. And I agree that the priority must be in successfully recovering Donatello. But I will not allow my position as Donatello's advocate to be removed unless he himself requests it, and I will act as I see fit until that time."

"I concur," Mortu said. "Leatherhead?"

"I believe we should trust in this display and return to the Homeworld as quickly as possible. There can be no delay in rescuing Donatello."

Leo and Splinter returned to their feet swiftly. "How soon can we leave?" Leo asked.

"Any moment we wish. You need only pack whatever weaponry or equipment you might want. You will not require many supplies," Mortu said.

"Go," Splinter barked and his sons scattered, racing to the dojo and returning each with their go-bags. _Bags prepared by Donatello and left for us in case of emergency. For just such an occasion as this, though he could not have known it would be concerning himself._

 _He may even have given up hope that we would return to find them, let alone use them to save him. My poor son._

In mere seconds, the three turtles were assembled around Splinter.

Mortu held up a hand with a small device in it. "This will transfer us back to the Homeworld. Is there anything else you need?"

"No," Leo shook his head. "We just need Donnie back where he belongs."

Mortu's expression quirked but he did not answer. Instead, he signalled for retrieval.

The seven vanished in the wash of an Utrom teleportal.


	2. Belong

Hello all!

I don't really have much to say this week. I'm so grateful for all of you who seem to enjoy these stories so much. I know my stories aren't for everybody, so it means an enormous amount to me that you have let me know what you like and have given me such kind words. You are the best!

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 2: Belong

* * *

The teleportal had only just finished reforming its travelers when Mikey groaned.

"I forgot how much I hate that!"

"It is certainly an unpleasant sensation," Splinter agreed, leaning a bit more weight than usual upon his walking stick. He turned to Leatherhead. "Why did we not utilize Donatello's portal stick?"

"The portal stick requires very specific coordinates to work correctly and is truly only interdimensional in purpose, not intradimensional. To reach you, we first used the teleportal to return to Earth at the same location from which we departed and then used the portal stick from there to and from Usagi's world."

Mortu was already shedding the artificial skin of his robo-organic body as he added, "Had I not arranged in advance to signal for a pickup, we would have been obliged to return to those same coordinates before we could be retrieved. However, that would waste time and time is truly of the essence now that so much has been lost already."

"Quite so." The Professor neatly folded up his own outer camouflage. "Come, come. There are preparations to make as well as some research to do."

"Research?" Leo asked, not wobbling by a deliberate effort as he made his way off the platform.

"We learned of Donatello's predicament with the Architect less than sixteen hours before we made the journey to retrieve you," Mortu said. "It was just enough time for us to begin our preliminary investigation, but no more. However, I am hoping that in our absence our friends have made their own progress."

"It is likely they have made much," Leatherhead said. "What was a very frantic five hours on Earth and in Usagi's dimension will have been approximately ten days here."

Raph scowled. "Why'd you take so long explainin' it to us at home, then?"

The Professor tipped his robotic head in a gesture that was vaguely disapproving. "The vast majority of our time was wasted wandering the other dimension until we were able to get an audience with someone in the palace at Edo to tell us of your whereabouts. While the half hour or so in your lair did contribute to the problem, you should blame our tardiness on your former hosts."

He paused and added, "And we had no intention of bringing you this far and risking further damage until we were even somewhat convinced of your intentions."

Splinter saw Raphael's eyes flash and held out a hand to stop his son before his temper could rise.

"Please tell us how we can be of assistance, Professor."

Leatherhead let out a breath. "For now, the majority of the work is reliant upon our being able to locate a ship that has passed almost unseen for decades. We have few advantages in finding it, but find it we must."

"We do have one new piece of information." Mortu's robo-organic body stood like an empty shell and the Utrom hovered on his disc once more. "Near the location where we lost Donatello's signal, we found a residual energy signature which is rather unusual. We may be able to track it."

As the door to the room opened, Mikey looked up. "Great! Let's do that! We're good at tracking stuff!"

Leatherhead was already shaking his head. "You lack the technical proficiency to assist. The time it would take us to teach you to use our systems is better spent simply searching ourselves."

"Besides," the Professor said, "I believe someone wishes to speak to you."

He moved aside, revealing a diminutive, blue-skinned figure.

"Krian'daren." Mortu moved to her swiftly. "Have you heard anything?"

Krian'daren shook her head, though it was jerky; the gesture was one she had learned for her Earth-born patients, but she still did it a little stiffly.

"Nothing, Mortu. My concern grows my heart." Then she fixed her strangely-round eyes on the newcomers. "His family, I see."

Leatherhead stretched an arm to her. "Krian'daren, please meet Master Splinter and Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo." He gestured to each. Then he looked to the assembled turtles and rat. "Krian'daren has been Donatello's doctor and psychologist since his arrival and knows him well."

Krian'daren clapped her hands once. "Yes. More than most others, though his mind and heart are wide and share easily."

She peered at them for a long moment before she looked up to Mortu.

"I will examine them all."

"We don't need no doc pokin' and proddin' us right now." Raph crossed his arms against his plastron.

Krian'daren was not troubled by his sneer and padded up to him, poking him sharply as high up his stomach as she could reach easily.

"Doctor you do need, Raphael. Count for me the times your head was knocked hard enough to damage?"

Raph blinked. "Uh...I guess I don't know. A bunch, probably."

"There is also the fact that there almost certainly has been nano-neural damage from exposure to the alternate dimension," the Professor put in.

Krian'daren's gaze went granite-hard. "All of you. My patients. I will fix your minds each as I healed Donatello."

Then she turned and looked up to Mortu, her expression carefully away from the others.

"But I will not counsel. My own heart not steady with them."

"I understand," Mortu said. "It is difficult for us all. If they desire it, I will arrange for someone who has not worked extensively with Donatello to provide any therapy necessary."

Leo tipped his head. "Uh, are you saying…?"

Krian'daren turned and met his eyes. "For many flows, Donatello told stories. Of your adventures. But also of the pain you cause. The hurt." Her eyes flicked to Raphael. "The damage, almost life-threatening."

Raph cringed.

She looked back to Leo. "I know you through the eyes of my young one. I would fairly not regard your hearts with my own unsettled. When we find Donatello, perhaps. Until then, in you I see the hurt of lost Donatello."

Leo felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. He stifled his emotional reaction and bowed to her.

"I would like to apologize to you. I...I owe Donnie an apology too, and I know that. But...you were obviously a good friend to him and through hurting him I have hurt you, too."

"We all have," Splinter added.

"But we're not like that anymore." Mikey's face was caught between determination and desperation. "We're better now. We won't forget again. So...could you, like, _not_ look at us like we're Shredder-levels of evil or something?"

Krian'daren clapped once again. "I will try. For my rudeness, I am sorry also."

Mortu hovered closer to them. "Come. Let us go arrange for quarters so that you have somewhere to stay. Then I will consult with the Guardians and see what they have learned in our absence."

He led the way out of the teleportal room, waving a foreleg at another Utrom who had been manning the controls of the teleportal.

When the three turtles and Splinter emerged into the big atrium of the Science Institute, they all stopped in awe, just as Donatello had done.

Leatherhead exchanged a speaking glance with Mortu. The similarity was both reassuring and rather painful; the keen loss of their turtle was all the clearer with his brothers present.

Then there was a cry.

A tiny Utrom came whizzing through the air on a disc no bigger around than a teacup saucer, its eyes wide. It halted before Leonardo and began babbling rapidly in another language.

Leatherhead spoke to the creature gently as its expression shifted.

The tiny Utrom turned back and seemed to ask Leo a question.

Mortu answered it in the same language.

The tiny creature gave a wail and sped away, back down to the lower level where several other Utrom had gathered, watching it.

"What was that all about?" Raph asked.

Mortu and Leatherhead were both looking downcast, so it was the Professor who spoke up.

"That child was one of the young ones who has regularly corresponded with Donatello. Xe isn't yet old enough to study at the Institute, but xe has been sending diagrams and plans and ideas to Donatello ever since his first broadcast."

He paused, looking away.

"Xe is to be the next guest to fill the broadcast slot while Donatello is absent. Xe saw you and hoped...well. Xe hoped Donatello had returned, not realizing you were not he."

"Xe?" Master Splinter asked.

Leatherhead gave a sigh. "There is so much to explain. Come. Let us get you at least some temporary breathers and translators before we have to go through this another time. Then we can try to explain things."

-==OOO==-

Michelangelo threw himself down on the nearest thing that looked like it wasn't sharp or fragile.

"Does _everybody on this entire planet_ hate us or what? This is _super uncool_ , dudes."

Raph stomped over. "It's our own fault, ain't it? We're the ones who left Don. We're the ones who screwed this up. If somebody'd been that rough to Casey or April, we'd have kicked their shells big time for it."

"I believe you are correct, my son," Splinter said, lowering himself to sit on the same couch-like cushion that cradled Michelangelo. "These people are concerned for Donatello. They do not know if they can trust us as his family or if they should guard against us as his enemies. It shows their regard for Donatello that they treat us cautiously."

Leo was leaning against a wall. "It makes sense. I mean, if anybody but us had hurt Don so bad he ran away to another planet, had brain surgery, and needed a year's worth of therapy – well." His smile was brittle and cold and furious. " _I_ wouldn't have received them well, that's for sure."

"All we can do now is continue to demonstrate our trustworthiness and our loyalty to Donatello," Splinter said. "If we prove that we are concerned with his best interest rather than our own, they will begin to accept us."

"Yeah, but...it _stinks_!" Mikey said, his face muffled by the spongy couch.

Raph reached over and flicked Mikey's head.

"Ow! Hey!"

Leo moved to intercept his brother if Raph was about to rage on Mikey, but stopped at the broken expression in his eyes. "Raph?"

"Don't you shellheads get it yet?" Raph turned and suddenly he was all fury and fire and sharp pain. "This is _exactly_ what it was like for Donnie in the other dimension! Except he was by himself! And none of it was his fault!"

Leo stopped. Considered. Bowed his head. "You're right."

Raph stepped away and moved to the window that faced out into the alien planet. "Every time someone looks at us sideways or wonders if we're just gonna turn on 'em or tries to pretend they're not mad at us...it's what we did to him. April and Casey were too nice and stopped blaming us too soon."

"Too soon, my son?"

Raph didn't face his Sensei but his answer shook his voice. " _One day_ of this and I'm ready to quit or punch somebody or somethin'. How long did we make Donnie go through that before he decided it wasn't worth it anymore? Before we ever kicked him out and beat him up?"

Mikey sat up, his eyes somber. "We deserve it. We deserve a lot worse."

Splinter shook his head and raised his voice enough to make it clear he was speaking to Raphael as well as those closer to him.

"We cannot allow ourselves to become caught in a cycle of such guilt. It will not help us find and save your brother. We must focus only on what we can do now, not on what we should have done then."

"What the _shell_ can we do anyway?" Raph whirled, hands up and fisted before him. "We can't use their computer stuff. Nobody will tell us anything in a language we can understand. It ain't like we can go outside and look for tracks."

"No." Leo stepped towards him, hands out placatingly. "But we can trust those who are looking for us. And we can be ready to move as soon as they find something. And…"

"And what, Fearless?"

Leo shrugged a little helplessly. "And we can get help from those doctors. We can let them fix our brains so we aren't at risk of being so lost again."

"And." Michelangelo sat up.

Splinter nodded. "Go on, my son."

"Well...we can learn about the Donnie here." He shrank a little under the intense looks from the other three, but then he pushed out his chest and continued. "Maybe the best way to help is to know who Don is now that he's been here. What he likes and what he can do and who his friends are. Then, when we find him, we won't, you know, not recognize him. He won't be like a stranger."

Splinter put a hand on Michelangelo's shoulder. "Yes, my son. I think that is the wisest suggestion of them all."

Leo nodded and forced some of the tension to drain out of his shoulders even if it remained in his heart. "So. First things first. Let's figure out this crazy hotel room or whatever it is. I know I'll feel better when I know where to sleep and how to lock the door and where the little turtles' room is."

That earned a chuckle from Raph. "Priorities, huh Leo?"

"Priorities." Leo managed a smile. "First we get settled. Then we get healthier and we figure out everything we can about Donatello and all his new friends. And then."

Leo's conviction had never really faded, but it was close to the surface again and it infused certainty into his voice.

"When they get a lead on Don, you better believe we're going to be there to find him and save him – no matter how far we have to go or how strong this Architect is."

"Nothin's stronger than us fighting for our own," Raph added.

"Count on it." Mikey's face was steady and just as determined as his brothers'.

Splinter nodded, but his thoughts were not so easily calmed.

 _And let us pray that the Donatello we find is well, as he was here. He has been in the hands of an enemy for far too long._

 _Be strong, my son. Endure. We will find you. And we will bring you home._

 _To whichever home you choose._

That thought pierced his heart with grief, but he could not deny its truth.

-==OOO==-

" _Seriously_? You wanna install something in my _nose_?"

"It is one of the options, yes," Leatherhead said.

Mikey kept on shrieking. "I don't even like getting _water_ up my nose! Those...whatever-they-are's would be _way_ worse!"

"You would not feel them at all," Leatherhead said, torn between exasperation and laughter. "The bio-technical breathers function like a filtration system embedded in your body that remove and break down any particles in the air which might be hazardous."

"And it is but one of the options," the Professor said, sounding distinctly tired.

"My son." Splinter's voice was not sharp, but it was certainly intent. "Our allies are showing us both hospitality and patience." He reached up and laid his walking stick threateningly against Michelangelo's shoulder. "You would be well-advised to show them the same courtesy."

"Uh. Right, Sensei. Sorry."

Splinter shook his head and turned back to the Professor and Leatherhead. "My apologies."

Leatherhead made a small smile. "I did not see this option as so...discomfiting earlier, but perhaps Michelangelo has a point. It does sound rather strange to one not familiar with Utrom methods."

"But you say that Donatello willingly underwent this procedure?" Splinter asked.

"Yes," the Professor said. "Both the implanted breather and the translator. He was pleased with them both. I believe he even kept notes of his adjustment period to both somewhere."

"They would be in his rooms," Leatherhead said. "In the early days, he prefered to write in his notebooks."

"Then perhaps if we could read my son's own reflections, we might be better able to make a decision."

Leatherhead nodded. "I understand, Master Splinter. On my next trip home, I will retrieve them for you."

Mikey bounced on the balls of his feet. "Can't we come with you? I wanna see Donnie's digs!"

The Professor tipped his head. "His…'digs,' you say?"

Leatherhead snorted. "He means his room, Zayton. That should be within your vernacular lexicon."

Before the Fugitoid could reply, Mikey gasped. "Zayton? Is that, like, a nickname?"

"No. It is my given name," the Professor said with haughtiness creeping into his voice. "Which I have allowed some to use."

"Cool! Can I?"

"Could I prevent you, Michelangelo?"

"Nope!"

Now Splinter did bring his walking stick down on Mikey's head.

" _Ow_!"

The door opened and Leo and Raph appeared. Raph smirked at Mikey rubbing his head. "What's the doofus done this time?"

"We were merely exchanging cultural differences in the terms of address," Leatherhead said.

"Apparently I'm not allowed to tease the Professor about his goofy name," Mikey said, side-stepping away from Splinter to where he thought he might be safer.

He wasn't; Raph pulled on his bandana tails sharply. "The only goofy one around here is you, shell-for-brains."

Splinter chose to let his two sons handle their discussion on their own and turned to Leo. "How do you feel, Leonardo?"

Leo rolled his neck on his shoulders. "Pretty good. Just a little weird, I guess."

"It really wasn't a big deal," Raph put in. "They didn't crack open his head or nothin'. Just put on a couple of sticky things that glowed and pushed a lot of buttons."

Leatherhead nodded. "Yes. Unlike Donatello's case, which was much more severe, Krian'daren says none of you require extensive reconstruction. The majority of the work is merely strengthening those cells which have degraded and ensuring that all neural pathways are connecting to their receptors without issue."

Raph shrugged. "Didn't look like more than gettin' a CAT scan or somethin' like they show on TV back home."

"Didn't feel like much more than that, either," Leo put in. He rubbed his head. "But now that it's over…well. Remember the first time we went out to Northampton with Casey and April?"

"Yeah?" Mikey asked.

"Remember how different the air felt? We didn't really notice the city air anymore because we were used to it. But out on the farm it was a lot cleaner. My head feels a little like that."

"An apt metaphor," the Professor said. "Though I am surprised you can percieve as much difference as that. The neural work was relatively minor and quite delicate."

"My sons are all highly attuned to themselves and, with our recent experience, even moreso to their states of mind," Splinter said.

"Well, we'll see if it's the same for Raph tomorrow," Mikey said, popping up. "Of course, his head's so thick it would take surgery with a _chainsaw_ before he'd notice anything but…"

Raph flicked his head.

"Ow!"

"Some things do not change, I think," Leatherhead said to the Professor.

"Perhaps not."

Leo looked at his brothers with a slightly-raised eye-ridge. It was their second day on the Utrom Homeworld and their Fugitoid friend had not warmed to them very much at all. On the other hand, he seemed to be the only person overtly holding a grudge against them for what happened with Donatello. Even Krian'daren had been focused and professional while examining them individually and during Leo's surgery, though she still declined to offer them psychological therapy.

Before the quiet could get awkward, there was a beeping sound. It took the turtles a moment to realize that it was actually two identical beeps, one from the device on Leatherhead's hip and one from the Professor's own body.

Leatherhead looked uncomfortable. "I know we agreed, but it seems so…frivolous."

The Professor shook his robotic head. "I share your feelings, my friend, but Donatello would wish us to persevere."

Leatherhead's head drooped and he nodded. "You are correct, of course." Then he looked to the four guests who were watching him perplexedly. "Zayton and I have been regular contributors to Donatello's broadcast. We told the Institute that if we were on the Homeworld when the next segment was scheduled, we would make an appearance."

"Even in the middle of searching for Don?" Leo asked.

The Professor gave a robotic shrug. "Donatello has many underage fans who may be disturbed by his absence. It was thought that our presence might offer comfort to those who are concerned on his behalf."

"Do not let us keep you from your duties," Splinter said. "However, may I request the opportunity to watch this...program? Even if Donatello is not present, it would be a means of connecting with him that I would very much appreciate."

The Professor considered for a moment before nodding. "Very well. Will you all be joining us?"

Leo didn't need to glance to his brothers to feel their assent. "Yes, please."

"Come, then," Leatherhead gestured, leading the way from the private waiting area adjacent to where Leonardo had undergone his minor surgery. "Zayton, will you arrange for seats?"

At the end of the line making their way through the Utrom healers' building, the Professor paused before saying, "Yes, I have already sent the request. There should be places available before we arrive."

"We can sit in the audience?" Raph asked.

"It will be more interesting than being backstage," Leatherhead said. "You will be able to see the experiments and the graphics. Just do not be surprised if you draw a certain amount of attention."

"Wow. Like hanging with Cody, except without the paparazzi. I hope."

"You may indeed get some questions," Leatherhead said, "but we will handle them ourselves if you don't mind."

"You go right ahead," Leo said with a confirming glance to Master Splinter. "Maybe Donnie got used to the idea of being on galactic TV, but I'm not ready to step into that kind of spotlight."

"Donatello did not become 'used to it' as you say," said the Professor, "but he did recognize that his discomfort was vastly outweighed by the value of his contribution."

There was quiet for a while as Leatherhead lead the way through a little-used tunnel which, after a few twists and turns through what definitely reminded the turtles of the subway system, let out in a building whose colors were familiar even if nothing else was.

"We must leave you for a time," the Professor said. "We must prepare today's event and speak to the collaborators."

"If you can all promise not to touch anything, you can wait for the program to begin in Donatello's lab."

Raph almost stepped on Leatherhead's foot he jumped so close to him. "Really?"

Leatherhead managed a small smile. "It will not be familiar to you."

"It is Donatello," Splinter said then. "Even in an alien world, he will always be familiar to his family."

The Professor made a noise with his voice processor and purposefully strode away, leaving the turtles and Splinter with Leatherhead.

Leatherhead looked after him for a moment before shaking his head. "Please forgive him. You speak of family and you mean Donatello, but for almost two of your years, Zayton has considered Donatello and Mortu and I his family." Leatherhead's eyes dimmed. "The loss of one who has been friend and brother...it does not make the rest of this easy."

"Maybe he should get some brain surgery of his own," Mikey said. "Or at least some reprogramming."

Leatherhead looked away. "Come. Donatello's lab is this way."

It was one door amongst many on a floor that was clearly well-traveled given the number of individuals who met them with wide eyes along the way. Every one of them asked after Donatello, and Leatherhead explained, but this time the turtles and Splinter could understand with the temporary translators they wore.

No matter the language or the species, those beings who asked after their lost turtle spoke with regret and concern and respect.

At the door to Donatello's lab, Leatherhead read to them the label written in flowing Utrom letters:

 _Astrocyte Hamato Donatello  
Department of Mechanical Engineering  
Department of Computer Engineering  
Department of Telexistence Studies  
High Council Endowed Experimenter _

_Public Contributor and Broadcast Instructor_

Splinter lifted his hand and ran his fingertips along the inscribed version of Donatello's name. "It sounds very impressive. I believe it must be well-deserved."

"It is," Leatherhead said, nodding. "Here. Someone will come get you when it's time to sit in the audience." And he opened the door.

If the size of the lab was a surprise, its complexity and variety of projects was no surprise at all. Barely aware of Leatherhead shutting the door behind them, the three turtles began to wander into their brother's domain.

"You know," Raph said after a long moment staring at a machine that did who-knew-what, "it don't matter that we're on another planet. I'd still know Donnie's mess anywhere."

It was true. There was a pattern to the chaos that had filled all of Donatello's labs, and this one was no exception.

"Except here he has a whole bunch of help," Mikey said.

The others looked at him. "What makes you say that?" Leo asked.

Mikey pointed at a table that held an array of tools, some vaguely familiar, some totally inexplicable. "Well, there's the same thingy in a bunch of sizes. And some of them have different grips. I'm thinking an Utrom wouldn't use the same hammer Don would."

"Very astute, Michelangelo," Splinter said. More than anywhere else on the Homeworld so far, he could sense his missing son in this room, as though his presence hovered around his work and creations. "Being here has allowed Donatello to collaborate with others who may be his equals in a way rarely available to him before. Even in the future with Cody, he did not seek out others of like-mind."

"Because he didn't want to abandon us," Leo said. "The future was easy for Don, even at first, compared to the rest of us. He was trying to help us acclimate." A cold feeling rose up in his chest. "We should have given him more time to himself. We should have sent him to talk to others who would listen and understand him."

"It wouldn't have changed anything, bro." Raph put a hand on his shoulder. "We'd still be here and he'd still be missing."

Leo wanted to kick something and he could tell Raph shared the feeling. But neither of them would damage Don's lab, not when he wasn't here to yell at them or try to protect it.

To say nothing of finding out if the Professor could get even more mad at them for breaking something in Don's space.

Master Splinter moved out to the center of the room and sat. "I believe I will use this opportunity to see if I can reach Donatello on the astral plane. Here, where his soul was anchored for so long, I may be able to find him."

Leo immediately sat beside him. "I'll try too." It was either that or not help at all, and Leo needed to be doing _something_.

Mikey shrugged and turned back to the tools. One by one, he picked them up; if he could figure out their use, he'd at least have something to say to Don when they found him. Other than how sorry he was.

Mikey knew he'd be saying he was sorry for a long time, but it always helped to have a backup subject.

Left to his own devices, Raph decided to ascend the staircase to the second level. Half of it was piled with boxes and stacks of things, but the left-hand side was clearly Don's office. Raph moved until he stood at Don's desk. He could see small tablets and even spheres which he was learning served as phones or computers or email back home, but there was also a pile of a papery substance with Don's familiar handwriting scrawled across it.

 _Thank shell Don still writes in English._

Raph's chest hurt as he read through Don's schedule, learning how many students in his program he had, how much advising and teaching he did as well as his own studies. He skipped a lot of the notes on the projects themselves because they were too complicated for even him to follow, but he had no trouble with the commentary Don left behind.

 _Note to self – Baa'ku is really good at the interface project. Try to steal some time away from Uutin so she can give me a few more hours a quarter-rhythm._

 _Late again. One warning left before I have to tell Myle._

 _Swap the Tyllerians to second-day. They get too burned out otherwise._

 _Talk about xyr paper. Probably good enough to count towards degree. Offer to advise._

On another piece of paper was the beginning of a blueprint, then the words _COLOSSAL FAILURE_ underlined several times. But there were notes all over the page detailing the things that had worked and all the places Don felt the design had been flawed.

As he was shifting pages, Raph accidentally touched one of the littlest spheres on the desk. When it came into contact with his skin, it started to glow and projected a host of images.

Raph stared at them. They were pictures, like a weird sort of photo-album. Pictures from Donatello's life.

Don was present in most of them, almost always looking at the 'camera' and smiling or winking. His arms were often draped around other beings of various sizes as they stood proudly in front of something or in the midst of a crowd – except in those shots obviously taken when Don was working beside his students. In every picture, Don was wearing the medallion Leatherhead had said was his mark of rank. Leatherhead had one himself, but Donatello's was a little more elaborate.

Raph looked at the pictures intently, spending time on each. He studied Donatello's expression, his body language, his eyes.

 _He looks...happy. A shell of a lot happier than the last time I saw him._

 _He's not unsure about himself at all. Nervous, maybe, but confident too._

After several images: _Shell but a lot of people really like him._

 _Of course they do. What's not to like about Donnie? He's smart and selfless and funny and loyal. He doesn't fight with people who don't like to fight and he would give you the shell off his back if you needed it._

Raph's fingers tightened into fists.

The last picture in the array, larger than the rest, was a shot of Donatello standing with the Fugitoid, Krian'daren, Leatherhead, and an Utrom Raph guessed was Mortu though they all still looked pretty much the same to him. But there were humans in the picture, too, all wearing the uniform of the Guardians, along with a crowd of other aliens.

Raph couldn't quite tell what space they were in, but there was a huge sign hanging above congratulating Donatello on his doctorates and the clear indications of a party were everywhere.

In the picture, Leatherhead had an arm around Donatello's shell on one side and the head Guardian whose name Raph had never known had an arm around the other. Mortu (or whichever Utrom it was) was hovering right between the Guardian and Don, and had tipped the side of his fleshy pink head-slash-body to almost touch Don's temple. The Professor stood on Leatherhead's other side and was waving at the camera and Raph somehow guessed if he'd had a face that moved he would have been grinning wildly.

The whole group looked so relaxed. So comfortable.

Like a family.

Raph shoved at the ball to turn it off.

 _It should'a been us there with you, Donnie. It should'a been me._

 _If...when we get you back, I ain't gonna leave your side again. I promise._

-==OOO==-

There were several things about Donatello's science broadcast that the turtles and Splinter were not expecting – particularly its crowded room and its joyful atmosphere. In spite of their obvious strain, Leatherhead and the Professor were clearly working to ensure that the young members of the audience were having fun.

The lessons and accompanying demonstrations were both simple enough that they were easily understandable to the non-scientific visitors from Earth, and yet the graphics showed equations and calculations that were clearly highly advanced. The small, yellow being who was called up onto the main platform to show off their invention stammered nervously and said a few breathless words about how Donatello had inspired her to build something, and at his name there was a roar of sound and motion from the crowd.

At the end, Leatherhead signed off the program by beginning, "As Astrocyte Donatello would always say…"

And the audience responded in a variety of languages, "...always believe, always try, and you will find a way."

Leatherhead made a smile that looked a little forced, but he managed to sign off the show before his composure could fail. "Until our next project together, continue to explore and experiment, and please share what you find with us."

As the crowd started to pile into the aisles to leave the lecture hall, an Utrom appeared hovering above the turtles.

"Please come this way. We would like to arrange a quiet exit if possible."

Mikey gave the Utrom a thumbs-up. "We're ninja. Quiet is what we do!"

"Most of us," Raph grumbled as he smacked his brother's head.

The Utrom turned and headed away from the bulk of the crowd and towards a back corner. The turtles and Splinter rose to follow, employing their ninja tricks to try to pass unnoticed. In a crowd, this was actually easier just because people were primarily focused on not tripping and not losing track of their children or parents. In a few moments, they reached what turned out to be a hidden door.

A few dark twists and turns later and they emerged into the proper backstage area. Leatherhead was speaking quietly the Professor while several beings Raph thought he recognized from Don's pictures worked at taking down the stage setup.

Raph braced himself for another display of recognition, but as they crossed to meet their friends, though several of the people at work looked up at them, none spoke to them, nor was there whispering in their wake.

"I believe," Splinter said in a low voice for his sons' ears only, "that word of our situation has spread. Given that polite responses we received before viewing Donatello's lab, I am not surprised that his friends here have decided not to trouble us with the reminder of his loss."

"Ah," the Professor said, noticing them as they drew near. "I see you were not waylaid by the children. What did you think?"

"It's quite a program, Professor," Leo said. "I can see why Don started it."

"Yeah!" Mikey pushed a smile forward. "I always thought I'd be the most likely to become a reality TV star, but this is way better."

"You're enough reality without TV," Raph put in.

"What do we do now, Leatherhead?" Splinter asked.

Leatherhead had initially nodded at them in greeting but then had drawn his communicator from his hip at its insistent sound. Now he looked up with the first hope they had yet seen in his eyes since their arrival on the Homeworld.

"Mortu has something. He will need an hour or two with the High Council before he can get permission to release it. He will meet us at the Guardians' dojo. Bonani is waiting for us."

The Professor looked up at once. "We must go," he said to the nearest Utrom. "Please excuse us from our usual tasks."

The Utrom waved a foreleg and turned away, calling out orders. Meanwhile, Leatherhead spun to head for a door marked 'Lift' with everyone else in his wake.

The lift was a familiar sensation to the turtles who had used similar tubes in the TCRI building, but there was still something strange about the air that carried them and popped their ears. When they stopped at another level, Leatherhead strode straight onto a path and out into the late afternoon sunlight.

Behind him, Leo yawned.

Raph elbowed him. "Sleepy, Fearless?"

"A little." Leo shrugged. "Leatherhead said that the days here are a lot longer. I'm starting to feel it. But…"

Raph nodded. "I get it."

It wasn't like they had been sleeping well at home with Donatello gone and out of contact, anyway. They would all take this new exhaustion and out-of-place awkwardness if it got them a step closer to finding him.

Eventually Leatherhead left the wider, more-traveled path and headed for a smaller one. Around a few more bends they reached a door with words the turtles could finally read on this planet of flowing, alien script – the Japanese characters stark and odd somehow. But he did not pause to give them time to consider it; instead he rang a chime once and entered.

The turtles and Splinter paused on the threshold, studying the portrait of Hamato Yoshi that dominated the space across from the door.

Zayton let them take their time and entered with Leatherhead, moving straight for Guardian Owens standing to one side of the usual training and practice in the center of the floor. The wall to the left of the entrance that had long been filled with pictures and drawings of the Earth had gained a new section – a board tracking the information about Donatello's whereabouts. It was dwarfed in size only by a similar board dedicated to the movements of the Enlightened Ones.

"Mortu signalled," Bonani said. "I hope what he has uncovered is more than we have found."

"He would not call us together unless it was significant," Leatherhead said. Then he looked back over his shoulder. "I am sorry you cannot meet them under better circumstances."

Bonani shook his head. "The circumstances do not change our bonds of Clan."

The leader of the Guardians moved towards the Hamato Clan perched just outside the doorway, several of the other Guardians present joining him.

"Greetings," he said, giving them a bow. "I am Guardian Owens, first among the Guardian Corps. As I said to Don upon meeting him, Guardian Hamato was something of a legend among the Corps for his dedication, skill, and honor. For your part in defeating and apprehending Ch'rell, we are very much in your debt, heirs of our own Guardian Hamato."

The other Guardians bowed also.

Splinter and his sons returned the bow. While the turtles held the pose, Splinter rose to address them.

"It was our honor to serve Master Yoshi and to carry out his will." Then Splinter's eyes seized upon the band across Owens's arm, bright against his bare, dark skin.

Owens followed his gaze. "We of the Guardians consider Donatello to be a member of our number. Until he is found, dead or alive, we carry him with us." He reached with the fingers of his right hand to touch the purple band bound across his bicep. "We will honor him until he is found, and if he is beyond our saving, we will add him to the records of Guardians who served with dedication and skill."

Splinter's own throat closed but he nodded. "Thank you, Guardian."

"Please enter," Bonani said, stepping back. "We have some time to wait until Mister Mortu arrives with his information."

He watched them shuffle in, the door closing behind them. After a moment of assessing them, he added to his invitation.

"If you would like to spend this time training, you are welcome to use our dojo. And I am certain some of the Guardians present would also welcome a few rounds to spar if that would be acceptable."

The relief in the turtles' eyes was obvious. Even Splinter seemed to relax at something familiar and soothing.

"I'll take you up on some one-on-one action," Raph said. "Gettin' tired of kicking Mikey's shell."

"Hey! Just for that, I'll take on the best you've got. After all, I am the Battle Nexus Champion!"

"Stow it, doofus."

Leo ignored them both and offered Bonani a bow. "I would also appreciate the chance to test my skills."

"Let us all then accept this kind hospitality between warriors," Splinter said.

For the next hour and a half, the turtles and Splinter rotated between different Guardians, sometimes fighting with weapons, sometimes not. It was soothing to fight something, even if it was an ally, after so much helplessness.

And though the Guardians saw moves in the turtles that reminded them so acutely of the missing friend who had demonstrated them time and time again in his own studies with the Guardians, they simply continued to battle, calling no attention to it. They could see in the turtles' eyes that their own style and skills were familiar enough to cause pain without adding more.

When Mortu finally entered, all activity ceased at once.

Mortu moved into the center of the room. His face was still and grave.

"What is it?" Leatherhead asked before anyone else could. "What did you find?"

"There has been another sighting. But this time we were able to pick up the trail."

Mortu's gaze swung around the room, landing on everyone before settling at last upon the two different families that claimed Donatello as their own.

"I'm readying a ship. We're going after them."


	3. Circling

Hey all,

Just...brace yourselves. I told you this wouldn't be an easy road. And it will not get easier any time soon.

Enjoy! (?)

* * *

Chapter 3: Circling

* * *

Leonardo looked around the strange apartment Donatello had shared with Leatherhead and the Professor, feeling like the ground under his feet was as unsteady as the strange mat that cleaned them.

"So...this is where you guys live?"

Leatherhead was already halfway up to a small room whose door was big enough for his broad shoulders, but he turned back to answer. "Yes. Donatello's room is the top one, but we would ask you not to intrude upon it right now."

Leo stepped hesitantly forward, taking in everything. The three workstations on the second level against the window and how similar and yet distinct they were. Shelves of inventions to one side which Leo realized were probably gifts from some of the children Don had inspired. A banner congratulating Donatello on achieving his Astrocyte status, and a matching one for Leatherhead. Something official that looked like an award – Leo could only distinguish Don's name written the same way it had been on his office at the Science Institute.

The Professor bustled by him on his way from the kitchen to the stairs that led to the desks lining the window. "Please excuse me."

"Sorry." Leo's apology was automatic and numb. He shook himself to respond properly. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Your family will acquire your things from your temporary quarters after their surgeries are finished and they will meet us at the launchpad. But if you have any suggestions of supplies we have not thought of, I would be grateful for them."

Leo tried to focus. "Uh...other than weapons, provisions, and gear for infiltration, I'm not coming up with much."

Leatherhead stuck his head out of his door. "I am also gathering my personal medical and diagnostic equipment. Krian'daren will bring her own, of course, but if there are any biochemical issues, I wish to be prepared to meet them."

"I am also acquiring a secure connection to our private network," the Professor called. "Should we need to tap into any of our research or Donatello's own findings, I want to ensure we can do that without creating any weakness in our defenses. It would not do for us to rescue Donatello from the Architect only to again expose him to a threat from the Enlightened Ones."

"Who are the Enlightened Ones?" Leo called, remembering seeing the name on the Guardians' wall.

"A dangerous terrorist group. They have targeted Donatello twice in the last three flows."

Leo let that part pass – he wasn't clear yet how exactly the Homeworld marked time. "Why?"

The Professor shook his head. "Let us discuss it when we are on the ship and time is not so much of the essence. Suffice it to say, your brother – ahem, that is, _Donatello's_ inventions and projects have the potential for great good within the Collective, but there are those who would use them to bring war and danger to billions of innocent beings. Imagine the damage if a terrorist group could simply digitize a bomb and send it to be rematerialized here in the city."

Leo felt his throat go dry. "I never really thought about it."

"After they came for Donatello the first time, we were forced to do so."

Leo shut his eyes. He wanted to shout or slice something apart with his katana. He wanted to go back to the dojo and pound on a bag or a willing Guardian. He wanted to go back to the healers and watch over the three rapid surgeries being performed upon the rest of his family before they blasted off to outer space to try to save Donatello.

He wanted to go home. He wanted things to be the way they had been before.

He _didn't_ want to think about his brother being targeted by terrorist groups. He _didn't_ want to think about how much the Donatello he knew might have changed in the last two years. He _didn't_ want to think about his brother finding a home that he might not be willing to leave – or share with his family.

He didn't want to think about what they might find when they caught up with the Architect.

The day before, Mortu had shown them some footage of the victims of the Architect; that had been enough to chill Leo all the way to the soul. He could not imagine his brilliant, gentle brother with vacant eyes. Not again. Not after the Outbreak.

Never again.

 _But...Don's been alone with him...for weeks._

 _If the Architect has hurt him...if he's so much as given him a case of hiccups…_

Fire and fury rose in his chest, potent enough to choke.

 _I'll kill him. I'll burn the Architect's whole ship to the ground. I'll_ _annihilate_ _him._

 _It won't make me any less guilty of hurting Don myself. I know that._

 _I'm already paying for it. I have a feeling I'll be paying for it even more before we're done._

 _But I'm not going to pay for it alone._

 _The Architect took Don away from this world where he was happy and appreciated and healthy and wanted._

 _I'm not going to leave a single microchip standing._

He opened his eyes at the sound of Leatherhead descending his stairs with a bag slung over his shoulder.

Leo's gaze met Leatherhead's and they locked. Leo's rage met an answering fury in Leatherhead, a fury just as hot and sure, and no less vicious.

 _And apparently I'm not alone in that thinking._

 _Hang on, Donnie. We're on our way._

-==OOO==-

Michelangelo kept his eyes fixed on the back of his Sensei's head.

 _Seems weird they didn't have to shave his head. But that's probably a good thing._

 _If they had, I wouldn't be able to not say something._

 _Like, every ten minutes._

 _And my head would crack long before Master Splinter's walking stick gave out._

He poked the side of his own head.

 _Nope. Doesn't feel a whole lot different._

 _Raph would say that's because there's nothing in my head in the first place._

 _But I kinda get what Leo said about it feeling like he was breathing different air. Like...somebody installed air conditioning in my head._

 _That's a weird thought. Even for me._

 _Kinda nice, though._

 _I think I missed having all my weird thoughts._

In the room beyond, Krian'daren stepped back from the seat. Through the monitor, Mikey could see Raph blinking.

"That it, Doc?"

"Yes, that is all. Not so different, I think. But enough."

"Whatever." Raph pushed himself to his feet. "We're all done, right? We can get goin' now?"

"Yes. No testing because no implanting. I call Mortu." Krian'daren moved a small hand to touch a button on the warm, smooth wall. "All are finished," she said.

"Excellent. Someone will meet the turtles at their temporary dwelling to collect their belongings. A ship has already been secured. I will send you the coordinates for the location at once."

Krian'daren clapped once and turned back to Raph. "Go. Quickly, young one."

Raph blinked.

Splinter had already left the room to go meet Raphael, but Mikey was still watching the monitor, so he caught it.

 _She called Donnie her 'young one' before. She hasn't said anything that nice to any of us since we got here._

 _I wonder what she saw in Raph's brain that changed her mind._

 _Maybe he's got a smiley face in there somewhere. Since he sure doesn't have one on the outside!_

But as Raph shook himself and strode from the room, Mikey realized he had to bolt or he would make them have to wait for him – and waiting was not something anyone could stand, not right now.

In fact, Mikey was fairly sure he could count on both hands the number of times he and Raph and Splinter had moved so fast. Once Splinter took a few moments to touch his son's head, feeling for the subtle spiritual changes from the surgery, they set off for their assigned rooms. The go-bags had been left mostly packed, since they'd only been on the planet a day and a half, so they scooped everything up in a matter of moments.

A woman in the uniform of the Guardians appeared at the door just as they were turning to leave.

"Come with me. Mister Mortu has asked me to escort you."

She 'drove' them through the city on a flying platform that Mikey decided he _loved_ and he _wanted one right now_. And he wasn't the only one, given the grin on Raph's face.

Before long, they were met by another flyer, this one with Leatherhead and the Professor and Leo. Leatherhead carried a heavy bag over one shoulder, and Zayton had something of a metallic backpack on, but Leo's hands were empty.

 _He looks miserable_ , Mikey thought. Then he brightened. "Hey, Leo! Catch!"

And he flung Leo's pack across the empty space to his brother.

"Mikey! What the _shell_ were you thinking?" Leo yelled, having barely snatched it out of the air. "If you'd missed, it could have hit someone below! Or we'd have to go back!"

"Dude! When do you _ever_ miss?"

Raph shoved at Mikey's shoulder, but there was no force in it. Mikey rolled with the hit as if Raph had meant it and gave an exaggerated "Ow!"

When Leo turned back to face front, Raph leaned close. "Not bad, dimwit."

Mikey stared at the alien landscape with interest. It reminded him of the home planet of one of the characters in his second-favorite comic book series, after The Adventures of Silver Sentry, of course. Except that planet had been purple and filled with carnivorous beetles. He kept up the mental comparison until they ducked into a tunnel that ran through a dark, mostly boring underground.

The Guardian steered them through many tunnels and doorways until they emerged in a hangar filled with dozens of similar ships, very like those Mikey remembered from the visions shared by the stranded Utrom crew on Earth. They darted around the largest ship and moved towards a back area where smaller craft sat in various states of readiness.

But one smaller ship was the center of much attention as Utrom and Guardians alike raced about. It was a deep teal color, sleek and compact.

Mikey was surprised to see one Utrom in one of the robo-organic bodies, though it had no false skin this time. This was the one giving orders.

"Mortu," the Professor said the instant the flyers stopped and he could step off. "How soon can we take off?"

"Almost immediately," Mortu said, and Mikey almost smacked himself for not figuring out which Utrom would be in a suit to go with them. Mortu turned on a heel and strode back towards the aft of the ship away from the others in the area.

Guardian Owens came around a corner and moved to face Mortu, speaking in a low voice. "We should be going with you."

"You know why I cannot allow that."

Owens crossed his arms against his chest. "This is not merely a personal inquiry anymore. The Secrete Obscura is obligated to investigate these attacks upon members of the Collective."

"I know," Mortu replied. "But with what we've been hearing out of our intelligence nets…"

Owens frowned. "Then leave most of the Guardians here in case they decide to strike. But take me with you at least."

"No. I need you here, Bonani. I need you because I cannot trust anyone else."

Yes, Mikey was blatantly listening right now, and had even crept away to hide behind some big lumpy somethings so he could hear more. Who cared what Leo was saying to LH about whatever? This was _interesting_.

Owens looked surprised. "I am not next in line."

"You are," Mortu said. "Leadership is never designated until it is given. Today I am giving it to you."

"The High Council will not approve. I have not tried the Heart."

"The High Council agrees. No one will suspect. If the Enlightened Ones do move, they will not anticipate you _because_ you have never tried the Heart."

Guardian Owens let out a breath. "I suppose. Very well. But you must tell me why you take no others with you."

"Do you not recall the answer I gave the High Council?"

"I recall it, but I know that cannot be your true reason."

"Ah." Mortu paused for a moment before he spoke in a voice that was low and profoundly sad. "The more lives join us on this trip, the more potential victims for the Architect. Given the choice, I would not risk my friends at all, either. But I _cannot_ risk those who guard the Heart and the Collective."

Bonani's face softened. "I believe that is why Donatello went alone as well."

"I am certain it is. And I cannot feel that he was incorrect in his decision, but I cannot make the same one. To save him will take more than just myself."

"And his family? Do you truly trust them?"

"Enough. Leatherhead does, and Krian'daren has confirmed that the nano-neural damage could have been partly to blame for their cruelty. On the other hand, Zayton is still very angry. But in the end, I trust in their skills. Even if their motivations are not kind, they are better than many of the Secrete members, and those who are their equals I cannot spare."

"I see. I trust you to know best." Owens bowed. "Be safe, Mister Mortu. Bring our Donatello home."

"I shall."

Mikey eased away before either of them could turn to see him. He tiptoed back to his family and immediately instigated an argument with Raph to serve as cover for his absence. By the time Mortu and Guardian Owens joined them, he was shrieking and running for his life from his irate brother.

"The ship is fueled and ready to go," Mortu said. "Because we are not employing any Navigators, we need not wait any longer to depart."

"Then let us not," Splinter said. He tapped his walking stick firmly and his sons returned to him, though Mikey put Leo between himself and Raph.

"Follow me," Leatherhead said, leading the way up a few mushy stairs to the entrance. "I will give you a brief tour while Mortu begins the launching sequence."

The ship was not much larger than the cruiser the turtles had stolen from Zanramon of the Triceraton Republic, but the interior was broken up into four smaller rooms instead of one huge room and the cargo bay. The forward room was clearly the cockpit, while the next two were some combination of cabins and labs – both were outfitted with desks and Utrom computer interfaces as well as bunks for sleeping. The aft compartment was mainly stocked with supplies, but it was made very cramped by the presence of two large spherical objects.

"What are those?" Leo asked.

"It was decided that the normal escape pods from this ship might not be sufficient should we get into a pitched battle with the Architect. These are far more resistant, both in terms of their impenetrability by weaponry and their maneuverability. It is less likely the Architect could force us aboard its ship in these."

"Hey, speak for yourself. If that's where Don is, that's where I'm goin'," Raph said.

Leatherhead shook his head. "Only under our own intent do we dare board. To be in the power of the Architect...well. We cannot assume whatever miracle caused him to take Donatello hostage will be repeated for the rest of us."

Mikey remembered the other victims left over from the Architect.

"I like my brain. I want to keep it!" he said, grabbing his head.

"What brain?" Raph returned.

But the tension was broken, anyway. And that was really the whole point.

-==OOO==-

"I'm so bored!"

"Mikey, knock it off, will ya?"

"But I'm _bored_!"

"We heard ya the first time, ya shell-for-brains!"

"But I've been bored for _three whole days_!"

"Enough." Splinter opened his eyes from where he had been meditating upon his lower bunk in the third cabin, the one claimed by the Hamato Clan. The second cabin housed Krian'daren, Leatherhead, the Professor, and Mortu.

No one had yet even ventured to guess which room would take Donatello when they found him. Perhaps not insignificantly, the only spare bunk was not in the Hamatos' room.

"But _Sensei_!"

"Michelangelo. Into the cargo bay. You will do one hundred flips. Raphael, count them."

" _Argh_! Why do I gotta do it?"

Leo looked up from his own meditation and smiled sweetly. "What _else_ are you doing right now, Raphael?"

"What are _you_ doin', Fearless? Just sittin' there!"

"I'm helping Master Splinter try to reach Donatello through meditation."

"Yes," Splinter said, the barest hint of a smirk on his face. "Raphael, you may either join me and I will send Leonardo with your brother, or you can go and count his flips."

Raphael gave a wordless grunt and got up from where he had been doing crunches just to keep from his own bout of boredom. He grabbed Michelangelo by the bandana tails and yanked.

"Come on, doofus. And if you do 'em slow or try to skip one, I'mma take it out of your shell."

"Hey! Raph! Ease up!"

The door slid shut behind them.

"Note to self," Leo said, smiling faintly at his father. "Add a book or something to the go-bags."

"And remove the pack of cards." Splinter nodded. "The option of poker is too tempting, and none of you have anything left to offer up as a bet."

Leo shrugged. At least _he_ hadn't been stupid enough to wager a month of bathroom cleaning against Master Splinter. That was at least part of the reason for Raph's current foul mood.

The rest was inevitable given three days in cramped quarters with very little to do.

"At least things are going better with those guys," Leo said, tipping his head towards the forward cabins.

"Yes. Though if your brothers continue their antics, we may lose the goodwill we have gained with our allies."

Leo snorted. "Honestly, it's not like it's going to be worse than it was."

But he, too, was glad that the last three days had thawed some of the discomfort around the others. Though the Professor was stilted and cool, Leatherhead had mostly returned to his usual self around the turtles. Mortu was rarely seen, being solely responsible for piloting their ship, but he was polite as always.

Krian'daren, however, was still something of a mystery to Leonardo. She seemed to vacillate between being motherly and being aloof. She and Leatherhead shared cooking duties and she was quick to ensure the turtles and Splinter ate enough, but she would not engage them in conversation about Donatello at all.

 _But Don did call her 'Aunt Kria' that one time she was on his show. Even if she's not mad at us, I would understand if she didn't actually want to talk about him. She misses him, too._

 _We all do._

With nothing else to do but train in a small space and meditate, the Hamato Clan had taken to calling up vids of Donatello's broadcasts on the little interface they sort of knew how to use. And the sight of the absent turtle was enough to keep the burning need to find him foremost in everyone's mind in spite of the tedious journey. Which meant his family was finally able to see who their lost brother and son had become in the last year he had been gone.

On the one hand, he was clearly his best self, the brightest Donatello Leo had ever seen, clever and kind and accomplished. On the other, there was no forgetting he had only gotten that way in the absence of the family who loved him and had forsaken him.

Whenever Leo felt like his chest was going to burst with the lack of Donatello, he meditated. So did Splinter. Raph and Mikey mostly bickered and annoyed each other.

 _The only thing keeping us from fraying at the seams is knowing he's alive. Because he is._

Leo was sure of it. Splinter was sure of it. For that matter, Mortu and Krian'daren were sure of it, too.

 _But having seen what the Architect does to people...is 'alive' going to be enough when we find him?_

Leo never got the chance for his imagination to carry him deep into horrific images of a Donatello whose mind had been shattered.

An alarm sounded.

Raph and Mikey darted back into their cabin. "What's going on?" Mikey asked.

Mortu's voice came over the intercom.

"We have located the Architect's ship. Please join us at the forward station."

It was a tight fit, but the sound of Mortu's voice had barely faded from the ship before the entire complement of passengers was crammed in the cockpit looking out the view-screen.

"Up close, it's a lot grosser," Mikey said.

"And bigger," Raph added.

They'd seen the footage of the Architect's ship that had Donatello visible through a window, but the scale of it had been absent in the fuzzy, distorted images. It appeared to have been originally conical in shape, with a rounded front, but it had bits and parts fused all over it, some obviously Triceraton or Federation in origin, others even more bizarre. The ship wasn't as large as the largest Federation cruisers the turtles had seen, but it was still several times larger than the ship the Shredder had tried to use to escape the Earth.

"Readings confirm we should be entirely invisible to their sensors," the Professor said, leaning over an instrument panel.

"How good is this cloaking of yours?" Leo asked.

Mortu didn't turn around. "I believe we will find out in a moment."

The metal arms on his hover disc pushed the controls slightly forward and their ship closed with the massive thing before them.

"Mortu, our plan?" Krian'daren's voice was low.

"We have a transmat device installed here, like the one we used to pull the turtles off Ch'rell's ship before it exploded. It lacks the range and power of a proper teleportal, but it can move us to that ship and back as long as we stay close."

"Then what?" Leatherhead looked over.

"Then we find Donatello." Splinter gazed at the ship that held his lost son. "We find him and we retrieve him at any cost."

"And what of the Architect?" the Professor asked.

"That," Mortu said, his tone sharp and cold, "we will address only after we find Donatello. But I have my orders."

"Mortu." Krian'daren moved closer to the Utrom. "I will be slow. Choose I to remain here."

"I believe that is wise," the Professor said. "I will stay with you. I will be more help working from the systems here to interface with that ship than causing the rest of you to have to compensate for my lack of battle experience."

He looked up at Leatherhead.

Leatherhead put a big hand on his robotic shoulder. "I understand, Zayton. I will not fail you."

"How long until we head over there?" Leo wanted to know.

Mortu fiddled with some controls. "Six minutes. That is the amount of time I will need to reprogram the auto-pilot and lock this ship's security."

Leo nodded and looked at his family. "Gear up. We've got work to do."

While supplies were grabbed, Krian'daren checked the breathers belonging to the turtles and Splinter. She also did a quick examination of Mortu's robo-organic suit while he finished piloting before he settled himself in its midsection.

The Professor looked up from his panel. "I have identified a small area that seems rather sparse in terms of internal sensors which is relatively close to Donatello's position. I will transmat you to that location."

"How do we get back?" Mikey asked.

Leatherhead gestured to the device on his hip. "Zayton will be able to lock onto this as well as Mortu's unit."

"There is but one true life-sign aboard, and that must be Donatello," Zayton added. "When either Mortu or Leatherhead signal for pickup, I will collect whichever life-signs surround their signal."

Mikey tipped his head. "Can't we just lock onto Donnie from here and get him out without having to go climbing around in that scary spaceship puzzle?"

Krian'daren looked up at him. "Not wise not knowing."

"The readings are not very sensitive," Leatherhead said. "He could be intubated or attached to a piece of equipment. Ripping him away from it without carefully disconnecting him could be dangerous, even fatal."

"But," Zayton said, "if it is necessary, I will do so. I would rather remove Donatello preemptively than risk more lives, or risk leaving him behind."

"That's not an option," Leatherhead said. His eyes started to narrow and the pupils went slitted.

"Don't." That was Mortu's voice, commanding and sure. "Leatherhead, not now. We need you clear-minded. Otherwise I will leave you here."

Leatherhead gave a half-feral snarl, but took a deep breath and his eyes went back to normal.

"Very well."

"All prepare for transmat," Zayton said.

Krian'daren looked up. "Be with care, all. Bring my young one home."

Splinter looked at her and their glances warred for a moment before ducked his head slightly. "We shall."

And Zayton sent them to the Architect's ship.

-==OOO==-

As they materialized, Leo's mind was already racing over the information Mortu had given on their first day in the ship.

" _To understand what we will face in our attempt to rescue Donatello, you must understand the nature of the Architect."_

 _Mikey groaned. "Oh great, here we go. Another word vomit!"_

 _Mortu had given him a look but continued._

" _We do not have a great deal of knowledge about the Architect beyond the original reports transmitted by the survey team that discovered it. Once it killed the team and took the ship, we have only had a few sensor readings from attacked outposts to go by. However, we know that the Architect did not have a physical body, unlike Professor Honn'i'kedt._

" _We believe the Architect has concentrated its virtual existence in the ship's chamber of the Navigators, using the mental link the Navigators would have had with one another to transfer its digital consciousness throughout the ship. In a sense, the ship is now its physical body."_

" _Then how are we gonna sneak around inside it?" Raph asked._

" _Just as you cannot feel the cells in your blood, the Architect's awareness of its own inside may be limited. Exactly how limited we will not know until we make the attempt. We will likely have to work in silence, but I do not expect that the Architect will be able to sense us walking just through the movements of our feet. Though sentient and powerful, the ship itself lacks a nervous system and has less reactivity than flesh."_

As soon as they were solid, Leo signalled his family for total silence.

Mortu moved towards the door of the room in which they had appeared. It didn't look like any room that Leo could readily identify, but he didn't bother to try very hard, either. Bathroom or kitchen or something beyond his imagination, it was a room that was relatively secure and it didn't have Donatello in it.

Nothing other than that really mattered.

Mortu eased the door open, then gestured for Leo to join him.

Without a word, Mortu pointed to a small sphere hanging from the ceiling down the hall. It was rotating slowly, clearly sweeping the corridor with a glowing eye.

Leo drew one katana and made a slicing motion.

Mortu shook the suit's head.

 _Makes sense. One of those going down will probably be pretty obvious to something plugged into the system. Okay. Plan B._

Leo watched it for a few more moments to get its pattern and timing. Then he leaned back and waved for Leatherhead and everyone else to join them at the door.

 _Leatherhead's no master of stealth, but he's fast. If he can make the run before it turns around, he'll be fine._

Leo gave his family a nod, waited for the eye to turn away, and flashed down the corridor. He placed himself exactly beneath it, looking ahead for the next eye, which was around a corner he could just see if he leaned almost in range of the one above. Then he reached back and quirked his fingers; Mikey immediately followed in his wake, so Leo moved ahead to the next blind spot.

They continued this way, leap-frogging from concealment to concealment until Mikey flashed the sign to Leo for 'hold position.' Leo was wedged in a roomier spot under some kind of bulkhead, so there was enough space for Mortu to join him. Leo leaned close to Mortu in his suit's middle.

Mortu spoke in a voice softer than a whisper. "The doorway around the corner on the left. We'll almost certainly be revealed."

Leo nodded. He glanced back.

Mikey was pressed against a wall across the hallway. Leatherhead was curled in a tight ball in a corner. Raph and Splinter were out of sight.

 _But we all know what to do when the alarm sounds. Run. Regather. And get to Donnie. Okay._

Leo moved.

He had just rounded the corner and was facing the door when the lights in the corridor went much brighter and a voice sounded from all around, cold and resonant.

"Identify yourself."

Leo drew both katana and wedged them in the seam of the door as the rest of the infiltration party came around the corner at a run. He started to push.

The door gave a little.

"Identify yourselves."

"Allow me." Leatherhead stepped up and got his big fingers into the gap Leo had forced. With a mighty shove, he began forcing the doors wide.

"You will not enter that chamber. Desist and identify yourselves or I will retaliate."

"You wanna know who we are, bub?" Raph yelled at the ceiling. "We're the guys who are gonna rearrange your programming the old fashioned way!"

"That is nonsensical. Provide other identification."

Splinter shifted so that he was beside Leonardo. "We are the family of Donatello and we have come to retrieve him from you."

The voice replied testily. "I will not permit you to remove him."

Leo tightened his grip on his swords. "Just try and stop us."

"I will."

Leatherhead pushed the doors open and everyone piled into the big room beyond just as the floor beneath their feet began to shake.

"Prepare for a rough ride!" Mortu called. And the floor dropped.

Three turtles, one rat, one crocodile, and one Utrom in a robo-organic suit scrambled to grab onto whatever wasn't moving as the room began to imitate a washing machine's spin cycle.

"What's it doing?" Mikey shrieked, clinging to the edge of an instrument panel along one wall.

"Varying the gravity controls!" Leatherhead called back.

"Can you stop it?" Splinter shouted. He had managed to get both fingers and toes around a portion of wall – or maybe a viewscreen, who could tell? – but it was taking all his strength to hold on as the room attempted to yank him in one direction after another.

"Not me," Mortu said, "but I know someone who can." He was never so glad for the safety harness that kept him in his suit; Mortu's suit could withstand the shifting forces far better than his own musculature. He opened communication back to their own ship.

"Zayton! We need normal gravity restored _now_!"

"I am already working on it," the Professor replied. "Give me just a moment to finish penetrating the systems' firewall and...done!"

Everyone fell or dropped from whatever they had been holding onto, some of them hitting the floor without a great deal of control.

"Ow…" Mikey rubbed at his tail where he had landed hard.

"Donatello!"

Everyone spun at Leatherhead's cry of dismay.

The room was clearly a laboratory of some kind. It was filled with tables and chairs that bore telltale restraints and a few bloodstains. Two of the chairs were obviously configured for Utrom bodies, while the tables were mostly humanoid- or Triceraton-shaped. Lining the walls and protruding from the floor near the tables and chairs were banks of computers which it did not take a technical genius to guess took readings and controlled the sinister-looking devices attached to each; bands that were built to encircle certain-sized craniums with hooks that would dig deep into skin and maybe bone .

But overlooking the scene was something altogether more awful than the implied use of these instruments.

A large, squat tank sat filled with an orange-ish substance that glistened like gel in the light rather than refracting like water. Suspended within it was Donatello.

Tethers were attached to his wrists and ankles, holding him still within the tank as though he had been staked out on a board like a butterfly. The lower half of his face was caught in a mask whose tube ran to the top of the tank.

And just above his purple bandana, shaded oddly in the orange gel, a hooked circlet dug into the flesh of his head.

"Donnie!" Raph abandoned everything and ran for the tank, one sai already in his hand. He slammed the knuckle of it against the transparent material with all his strength, but it didn't so much as creak.

Leatherhead appeared next to him and leaped to the top of the tank. "I need some assistance extracting him from this!"

"I will not permit it."

A stream of electricity ran from the ceiling down the many wires and struts that connected the tank. Leatherhead gave a cry of pain and fell back from it, his skin burned. His eyes blinked slowly once, then dropped closed and he went still.

Mortu rushed over. "Zayton! Extract Leatherhead at once! He needs medical attention!"

"Understood."

Leatherhead's form vanished in the light of the transmat.

"Do you wish me to pull you out as well?" came the Professor's voice.

"If you attempt to remove Donatello," the Architect said, "he will die."

Mortu looked over to Leo. "I fear that is true. The readings I am picking up suggest that Donatello's mind is currently wired into the ship itself. To rip it away without care could cause brain damage or worse."

"Then we get him out of there by any means necessary." Splinter faced the tank. "Architect, I do not know what you wish from my son, but I cannot allow him to remain in your hands."

There was a pause.

"The presence of Donatello's mind in my neural matrix causes some difficulty in harming you as his Source Unit. However, if you continue to threaten him, I will surpass this hesitation. You will not survive me."

Mortu spoke. "Why have you been attacking Utrom outposts? Why have you been killing people?"

"I was in search of the correct configuration to assist me in my task. Since locating the individual Donatello, I have not needed to continue my search."

"That's why you haven't killed since you took him."

"To do so would be pointless. The denizens of the galaxy will be a part of my matrix soon enough. To remove them without cause is senseless."

Mortu's voice echoed with rage as he bellowed in his own language, "So was the _murder of children!_ "

The Architect did not answer.

"What are you using Don for?" Leo called.

"Donatello's mind and skills are ideal for the completion of my task. He is a component part as well as a partner in my aim."

Raph snarled. "There ain't _no way_ he would ever work with a murdering Hal-wannabe like _you_!"

Mikey blinked at him. "Seriously, dude? _Space Odyssey_?"

"Shut up."

"It is true that Donatello was reluctant at first. However, he has seen the truth of my intent and now assists me willingly."

"How _willingly_ can he be helping you when you're plugged into his brain?" Leo shot back.

"Immaterial. He is helping."

"Well, he _ain't_ staying." Raph crouched down, readying to spring.

"Your utility alive is outweighed by the threat you pose to Donatello. This cannot be allowed. I must eliminate your interference."

The door behind them slammed shut, followed by an ominous sound of air moving.

"He siphoning the air from the room!" Mortu cried. "Professor!"

"I am doing all I can," Zayton said through the communicator, "but his defenses are impressive and they evolve as quickly as I can disarm them!"

"My sons," Splinter said, putting a hand on Raph's arm and pulling his family together, "practice your inner breathing at once."

"But we won't…" Mikey coughed. "We can't move around when we do that!"

"If you don't, you will die and you will also not move. You must trust in our allies," Splinter said. "Do it now."

The four of them sank to lotus-position on the floor and began to practice the technique, even as the lack of air began to feel like a kind of thinness against their skin.

Leo looked up to where a shield had closed over Mortu's exposed face in the suit. _Please, Mister Mortu. We're counting on you and the Professor to give us the chance to save Donnie!_

The Architect's voice sounded, sharp and clearly annoyed.

"Your allies interfere with my programming. This is not forgivable. I will eliminate them."

"Zayton! Get out of here!" Mortu yelled.

"Not without you!"

Splinter broke the breathing discipline. "We cannot leave Donatello behind!"

But his words were ignored.

The transmat activated and the turtles, Splinter, and Mortu were pulled away from the airless room. However, they rematerialized in an unfamiliar, round chamber.

Raph heaved in a breath. "What the shell?"

Mortu dropped the shield and turned his suit. "We are in one of the escape pods. But…"

The Professor's voice sounded in the small area. "Launching now."

"Zayton! What are you doing?" Mortu called, keying commands into the pad and attempting an override.

"Good luck, my friends."

And the pod was thrown into space.

"No, _seriously_ , what the shell?" Mikey yelled as they were flung about like popcorn popping. It took him a moment to grab onto the straps along the walls and buckle himself in, followed by the rest of his family.

Mortu did not bother – he simply braced his suit's limbs against the door while he fought with the keypad with his forelegs.

"Professor! Leatherhead!" Leo called.

"Look!"

Everyone followed Master Splinter's pointing finger out the small viewscreen. Their ship was visible, almost lost in the hulking shadow of the Architect's.

And then flashes of light emitted from the Architect's ship.

And theirs exploded.

"Leatherhead!" Raph bellowed. "No!"

The Architect's ship's engines glowed and it blasted away into the dark of space.

"It cannot be." Mortu's voice was low and lost. He sucked in a breath that sounded like it hurt. "This _cannot be happening_!"

"Maybe they got to the other pod," Leo said, gripping his seatbelt until he thought it should have cut through his skin.

Mortu began running sensors over the area. He ran the check four times before his voice worked, and even then it cracked like a pane of glass on the edge of shattering.

"The other pod...is in pieces out there. No signs...of life."

"The Architect killed them. It killed them all." Mikey stared at his knees and felt tears float out of his eyes.

"Mister Mortu," came Splinter's voice, gentle though tremulous. "I am so sorry for the loss of your friends."

Mortu did not answer and did not turn around so they could not see his face.

It was Raph who ran a shaking hand over his face. "If...the Architect did that like it was nothin'...then what's it gonna do to _Donnie_? What's it gonna do to the _galaxy_?"

Leo gulped even as a few tears of his own slipped loose.

"No. The bigger question is," he forced out through a throat tight with grief, "what has the Architect _already done_ to Donnie?"


	4. Wrong

I'm sorry I broke all your hearts last week. I expect to break them some more this week, too.

Next week is the last chapter of Act 6 and then we'll be onto 7. And, just so you know? Act 7 takes this stuff up to a completely new level. If you have trouble with cliff-hangers, you might want to wait before reading on for a little while. Like, until chapter 1 of Act 8, maybe. It'll be safer then. Kinda. You know. Some.

I do want to tell you that I wrote the key scene in this chapter before I'd even finished Act 2, I think. Everything's been leading here, and it's all pointed to the end. And every bit of it matters.

Which, I think, only makes it tougher for all of you.

I'm sorry again. But not sorry enough not to do it.

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 4: Wrong

* * *

Donatello opened his eyes slowly.

"Greetings, Donatello."

It took him a moment for his disorientation to fade. As his thoughts and memories slotted themselves back into place, he focused on using the sponge waiting beside him to sluice off the gel in which he had been suspended. He also checked his wrists and ankles, but there were no abrasions as usual.

Suddenly an image rose in his mind – recent events crashing to the forefront of his thoughts.

Donatello threw the sodden sponge with violence.

"You _killed_ them! _Why_? How _could_ you?"

"Donatello, I am very sorry. One of them was infiltrating my programming and attempting to prevent me from protecting you from the ones that came to retrieve you. I could not allow anyone to interfere."

Don buried his face in his hands. "They're _gone_. You killed them."

"Not all of them. It was unavoidable that the two life-signs and one android were destroyed, but it appears the android managed to spare the others by porting them directly into an escape pod. I did not interfere with them after that."

Donatello said nothing, but he began to cry.

"Donatello. Your stress levels are rising dangerously. You are flooding your body with compounds that impact rational thought."

That brought Don's head up, his face wet with tears and flushed. "Of _course_ I am! You killed…" He sucked in a breath. "Look, I can't deal with you right now. I can't…"

"Have my actions changed the agreement between us?"

"I don't know!" Don pushed to his feet. " _Maybe_! It depends on how I feel after you give me some time to handle this."

"I see." There was a long pause. "I did not take your emotional state into consideration when I made my decision. I apologize."

Don gave a broken, hard laugh. "Sure you do."

"You are angry with me."

"I am _furious_!" Don sucked in a breath. "Just...let me go back to my room for a while, okay? I can't...if I'm going to deal with this...you have to give me space."

"That is consistent with the process of grief as I comprehend it from various sources. I will do as you ask."

Don jumped down from the interface unit and strode from the room, his feet following a path without requiring him to think about it

"How long until you need me again?" Don asked as he approached his single claimed room on the ship.

"At least twenty hours."

"Okay." Don heaved in another breath. "I'm not coming out until then, okay?"

"But you will continue with our arrangement?"

Don stopped and his shoulders fell. He shut his eyes and hung his head. "Yeah. Probably."

"Excellent. I am pleased my actions have not damaged our partnership."

"Just don't count on me until I come out. And don't you _dare_ try to spy on me or this deal is in big trouble. Got it?"

"Affirmative. I will honor your request."

Don nodded and finished the walk to his cabin. Once through the door, he threw himself onto his bed and sobbed.

-==OOO==-

The escape pod floated for two hours, its passengers as silent as the void outside the protective walls, before the instrument panel lit up. A familiar dark face appeared.

"Mister Mortu, this is Owens. We are reading your distress signal. Respond."

Mortu's robo-organic body moved as smoothly as ever, but the Utrom himself was downcast and sluggish as though dragging his many feet.

"Mortu responding."

"What's happened? Are you in need of assistance? Were you able to locate Donatello?"

Mortu made a low, raw sound.

"Mister Mortu? Are you injured?"

Mortu drew in a breath. "No. Please lock onto our pod and bring us in."

"Teleportal telemetry received. We'll have you out of there in just a minute, and the time differential from your location should be about an hour on the Homeworld. Do you need medical teams standing by?"

"No." Mortu paused for a long, pain-filled moment. "But please summon Leatherhead's guardians. I...will tell them myself."

Bonani's eyes widened but he squared his jaw and nodded. "Understood."

There was a moment of tension in the air and then the teleportal drew the escape pod away from the place of such tragedy.

Mortu's last thought was, _But I will carry this darkness with me all my days, no matter how far away from it I flee._

As soon as they reintegrated, the door of the escape pod was opened and Owens stuck his head in. "The teleportal readings…" He broke off as he looked around. "I see."

Mortu steered his suit out of the pod and abandoned it. He did not glance backwards as he said, "Debrief them and take them...somewhere. I have to...I have to do the death notifications and then speak to the High Council."

Bonani caught up with him. "Mister Mortu, I could…"

"No." Mortu's voice was flat. "It is my responsibility."

"Not alone it is not." Splinter's voice rang in the cavernous room. He stepped down from the teleportal and moved to face Mortu. "These losses...I share at least some responsibility for them. I will share this burden with you as well."

Mortu closed his eyes. "Very well, Master Splinter. Honestly...I would appreciate it."

"I will take care of the turtles," Owens said.

As Mortu and Splinter exited the room, Owens turned back to the three turtles standing together, clearly holding one another back from their own despair. He took a deep breath and faced them.

"I need to know what happened, but first – what do _you_ need?"

Leo gulped. "Raph...probably needs to have some time to himself to vent. I can give you the...information, but then I'd like to meditate."

Mikey rubbed at his beak. "I just don't wanna be alone."

Bonani nodded. "Come to our dojo, then. I will send for some partners for Raphael and you can talk to me or anyone else you might like."

He could see that they were grieving, yes, but they were also badly shaken. Whatever they had learned, whatever they had experienced, it had left them uncertain. Owens privately vowed to do whatever he could to help them. No matter their actions towards their brother, the turtles were just as young as Donatello, and just as tender-hearted.

And they were Clan besides.

When they reached the dojo, Bonani gave his Guardians orders to let Raphael rage as he wished, and he threw a full-blown tantrum – breaking whatever came to his hands and savagely fighting anyone who presented his- or herself to him. Michelangelo sat against a wall and stared at the activity with wide, sorrowful eyes.

Leonardo explained what had happened in shaky words. He answered every question Guardian Owens asked, even though sometimes his throat got stuck on the details.

When he finished, he let out a long breath.

"It just seems...surreal. For them to be...gone. And...whatever the Architect is planning, or whatever it's doing to Donnie…" He trailed off and swallowed. "It's not good."

"No, it doesn't seem so." Bonani had kept his composure only through an exertion of titanium will. He had recorded the interview and was already composing suggestions for the High Council in light of this evidence. There could be no doubt that the Collective, the Homeworld, in fact the entire galaxy was in danger.

"You know," Leo said after a long moment, "there is one thing that keeps bothering me. Keeps sticking in my mind."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Well, in the security footage Mister Mortu showed us before we came here, we could see what we thought was Donatello through one of the windows on the Architect's ship."

"Yes?"

"Well, if he was in that tank all that time, we couldn't have seen him on that footage."

Bonani frowned. "Is it possible the Architect moved him?"

"I think it must have, but I don't know why. I mean, do Utrom ships normally put their brigs on the outside with a window?"

"No." Owens' heart was sinking. "They do not."

"Then why was Donnie where he was, and why wasn't he there later? What's going on with the Architect?" Leo closed his eyes tightly. "What is he _doing_ with my brother?"

Owens moved to grip his shoulder but froze before he got there and let his arm fall. "I do not know, Leonardo. But we will find out. I know we will get to the bottom of this eventually."

Leo nodded. He turned away and spoke under his breath mostly for himself.

"I'm sure we will. I just have a bad feeling about what we'll find when we get there."

-==OOO==-

"...At which point the Guardians used the teleportal to retrieve us."

Mortu did not flinch away from the many, many eyes upon him.

Beside him, Splinter attempted to give him a supportive nod, but the Utrom did not glance his way, either.

After a long moment, the many voices of the High Council spoke as one.

"We mourn the lives lost and we have the greatest sympathy for the hardship you have endured, Mortu. The Collective is lessened by the deaths of Leatherhead, Krian'daren, and Zayton Honn'i'kedt, but we are certain your own heart is in far more distress."

"Thank you," he said.

"However, though our hearts are heavy, we must think about the future. We must prevent any further loss of life."

"I agree."

"At this time, the Secrete Obscura is under the command of someone not so intimately connected with these events, correct?"

Mortu blinked but said, "Yes. I recognize that I am emotionally compromised at this time and am not a viable candidate to resume those duties."

"We concur. However, we will not bar you from participating in the investigation as your skills are among the best and we need all the help we can get."

Mortu made a gesture with his forelegs.

"What are my orders?"

"First, ensure that your full and detailed report is made available to the Secrete Obscura as quickly as possible."

"I will."

"Second, as you have already made the notifications to the Hoolann system as well as Leatherhead's own family, we would ask you to speak to the Science Institute as well. Myle should also be informed."

"Understood."

"Thirdly, we command that you take point on the tracking of the Architect's ship. We must locate it so that we can intercept and disable it before any other harm is done. You were able to plant a locator beacon while on board?"

"Yes, and it appears to be transmitting."

"We will not approach the Architect while it is within range of civilians except to intercede on their behalf. When the ship is clear of any innocent bystanders, you will direct the Guardians and the Secrete to its location."

Mortu paused for an instant before he answered, "Very well."

"Finally, we would ask you to recuse yourself from the boarding party, should we assemble one."

Mortu's expression folded inward. "Compromised or not, I am still the best qualified to re-enter the ship in the hope of disabling it."

"You will pass your intelligence to the Secrete. You accept that you are emotionally compromised. We expect that you will respect our desire not to put you into a situation you cannot regard with detachment."

Mortu visibly drew his face into a mask of calm. "I understand."

"Master Splinter."

Splinter looked up to the row of Utrom and the many faces projected above. "Yes, honored ones?"

"As you are not a citizen of the Collective, we have no authority to order you or your sons to refrain from making an additional attempt against the Architect. However, we would ask out of courtesy that you leave this matter to us. We do not wish to lose any more lives to it."

Splinter bristled. "I appreciate your concern for our wellbeing. However, Donatello is alive and on that ship. For as long as he endures, we will not give up trying to reach him."

"It is our duty to inform you that we may be required to destroy the ship. We would make all reasonable attempts to rescue Astrocyte Donatello, but if it is not possible to do so without incurring greater risk, we must consider the overall security of the Collective against his one life."

Splinter closed his eyes for a pained moment before he opened them again. "I cannot blame you for needing to safeguard the wider population of innocents. But you will understand, then, why my family and I cannot delay. If possible, we will avoid conflict with the Architect at all."

"And if that is not possible?"

"Then we will save Donatello regardless, though we will not risk lives other than our own to do so. On that you have my word of honor."

"That is sufficient then, Master Splinter. We wish you good fortune in this. We hope you can succeed in extracting Astrocyte Donatello. Then we need not debate using lethal force."

The High Council concluded and Mortu led Splinter from the chamber. They walked for some time before Mortu drew Splinter aside into a small, private area.

"What will you do now, Master Splinter?"

"I was going to ask you a similar question, Mister Mortu. For I sense in you an unwillingness to cease your participation at this juncture in the way requested by the Council."

Mortu smiled an Earth smile. "You are correct. I will do ask asked by the High Council, but I will also continue my own actions." His smile fell. "I will not leave Donatello to face the Architect and an attack by our own Secrete alone. We _must_ retrieve him before they move against that ship."

"What do you suggest?"

"The signal from the tracker I planted suffers an enormous lag before it reaches us. The High Council will have to follow it for some time before they can project its location and attempt to reach it. And even then, they may guess wrong and need more time to circle back to its new coordinates. I suggest we avoid their method entirely."

"And how do we do this?"

Mortu looked closely at Splinter. "If we had some way of ascertaining that ship's position _now_ , not hours ago, we could beat them to it by as much as thirty or forty hours."

Splinter frowned. "I do not understand."

Mortu's expression tightened. "Your Master, Hamato Yoshi, evidenced certain extra-cognitive and precognitive abilities, and Donatello possessed them as well. These abilities, while of interest on the Homeworld, are not much lauded for their accuracy."

Splinter nodded. "To the scientifically minded, magic is either fiction or fakery."

"Yes. But I have learned to trust in it. Especially after...well. Donatello mastered an ability even Yoshi never demonstrated. And he always spoke highly of your own skills."

"You wish me to try to find Donatello through meditation."

"Yes." Mortu drew closer. "And when you find him, lead us to him."

Splinter gave a slight bow. "I will make the attempt at once."

"Not here." Mortu moved away, Splinter following. "Let's do this somewhere I am certain is entirely secure."

He made for Donatello's lab at the Science Institute, and sent a message to Guardian Owens to bring the turtles there as soon as he could. Mortu's heart told him that Splinter's success or failure was not dependent upon the presence of his other sons, but that if and when Splinter found the location, no one would be willing to wait to retrieve them before settling on a course of action.

-==OOO==-

Splinter stepped into the astral plane after three hours of concentration; his soul was not as serene as usual and it made achieving higher states of consciousness far more difficult. As before, being in his son's lab seemed to draw the genius's presence nearer in his mind. But unlike the last time, now Splinter felt Donatello's life-force very clearly, almost as if he, too, were meditating. It was the first time there had been anything like the potential for deliberate contact, save once, since their return from the other dimension.

Splinter abandoned caution and dove towards the sense of Donatello.

Only to crash into something metallic. A shield, like a shackle around the mind he sought to reach, impenetrable and solid.

"Donatello! Can you hear me?"

Splinter thought perhaps there was a response, but it was so faint he could not be certain.

"Donatello!"

And then he was flooded with a sense of grief. And a sense of peril.

He latched onto those feelings and concentrated on the _where_ of them until he had an image fixed in his mind.

He opened his eyes. "I can see where he is, or perhaps where he will be shortly."

Mortu called up the computer. "Now we need just find it and procure a ship to get there."

Splinter rose. "I can only guide you from what my visions have shown, but they are clear. How many stations stand alone and abandoned in space colored brown when lights fall upon them? Rounded below but angular on top."

Mortu's mouth twitched. "Sounds like a hybrid trading stationary outpost, maybe Federation and something else. But that doesn't narrow it down enough."

Splinter nodded. "Then you must show me images of the possibilities. I will know it when I see it, but I can give you nothing other than that."

"Won't that take too long?" Leonardo asked, speaking for the first time since entering the lab. In fact, all three turtles had been silent and withdrawn.

"It will be faster than the Guardians' own method," Mortu said, "and we must take heart from that. It may also be more accurate. If I have learned anything in my time with Donatello, it is to trust in the wisdom learned from your Master Yoshi. I choose to trust in it now."

-==OOO==-

Exactly twelve hours after he had gone into his room, Donatello emerged. The Architect noticed him immediately as he returned to sensor-range.

"Donatello. Your vital-signs still show high levels of stress. Are you well?"

Don began walking back down the corridor. "I wouldn't call it that, no. But I'm here and I've got a plan."

"By 'here' do you mean that you intend to continue?"

"Yes. But I need your help with something first."

"What do you require?"

Don reached the interface room he had abandoned before. "I've already begun the process of dampening my emotions through meditation. I would like to complete the work while hooked into your matrix."

The Architect paused before saying, "Donatello, all organic beings experience emotions. Is ridding yourself of them truly necessary?"

Don stared at the tank of orange gel for a moment.

"I'm not doing this permanently. But I can't afford to be distracted, either. If we're going to do this, I need to be at the top of my game."

"The neural-positive gel used in to facilitate our neural link is already designed to suppress emotions in order to ensure an efficient exchange."

Don climbed up onto the tank. "Yeah, I know. But the plan doesn't work if I spend all my time suspended in there. I've got a lot of stuff to build for us, you know?"

"Your manual labor could be accomplished by other means."

"Not really. Yeah, you could steal some more robots, but we both know they can't test on the fly and it would slow us down. And it's not like you have hands to do it yourself."

"You make an excellent point. I would not wish our task to be delayed. Already I have waited too long. Additions and upgrades to my ship before your arrival took years if not decades of time as you perceive it."

"But with me around, I can do them in hours." Don nodded. "Exactly. So plug me into your matrix and I'll use your system to lock down my brain. Okay?"

"As long as you are certain there will be no ill effects upon your cognition or your competence."

"Trust me." Don slipped the mental bridge band around his head, barely flinching as it bit into his flesh anew through the constantly-open cuts. He affixed the wrist and ankle tethers and stood poised over the tank as the Architect slid it open. " _Not_ doing this would be way worse for both of us."

"As you wish, Donatello."

Don strapped on the breathing mask and jumped into the tank – and into the Architect's mind.

-==OOO==-

"Does anybody else get the heebie-jeebies from this tin can?"

Raph absently elbowed Michelangelo. "Don't matter, do it? As long as it gets us there."

"Why can't we just teleportal, though? That sounds way safer, and believe me, I never thought being taken apart in lumpy chunks would be better." Mikey dodged another strike from Raph.

"Because," Mortu said, "as I am 'going rogue' as the expression goes, I cannot authorize its use except as an emergency evacuation."

"So we can use it to get back if we're all gonna die?" Mikey asked.

"Or if we do manage to free Donatello, yes."

Leo glanced at his father. "Sensei, I…"

Splinter held up a hand. "Donatello is our priority. In retrieving him, you and your brothers are more necessary than I, for I may yet be able to assist him and you from here. And Mister Mortu is, of course, required."

"Yes, but...it doesn't feel right leaving you behind."

"The ship will only support yourselves, Donatello, and Mister Mortu for the duration of the trip if there is to be any return. My presence would endanger us all at a time when we cannot be distracted."

"So…" Mikey drawled, high and overly-eager, "why don't we just take a bigger ship?"

Mortu made an expression that looked as if he was holding back an eye-roll. He _had_ already explained this once. "Because this is as much as I can acquire using my own funds without raising our profile and drawing censure from the High Council."

"Let me guess." Raph crossed his arms. "You get in trouble, you wind up stuck in a dark little room and we gotta bust you out?"

"Nothing so drastic, but I would not be allowed off-planet. And all those who would help you other than myself are beholden to the High Council as well."

"Where's the band of merry smugglers when we need them?" Raph grumbled.

Mikey snorted. "Didn't we try something like that on D'Hoonib? I seem to remember that didn't work out so good."

Raph glared at him. "And whose fault was that?"

"You said that this ship is faster than the one we took last time, right?" Leo turned back to Mortu, leaving Splinter to quiet his bickering brothers.

"Yes, significantly. That is why it has much less in the way of environmental controls. However, it also lacks many of the safety features, including an independent escape pod. Any danger like what we faced last time may force us to retreat via the teleportal, and we may not be given another opportunity before the High Council grounds us."

"Then we get it right this time," Leo said. "We get there and we save Don and we get back."

"Exactly. Climb aboard. We must move quickly to reach the location Master Splinter saw before it is too late. It will not take as long to get there since we do not have to follow a trail but can rather go directly, but it will still be many hours – and every moment the Secrete Obscura get closer to taking their own actions as well."

Splinter faced his sons and they automatically fell into line before him. "My sons. Do not risk your lives, and do not risk your brother's. But save him. Bring him home."

They bowed. "Yes, father."

-==OOO==-

 _Architect, I want to ask you a favor._

 _You may have anything I can grant without compromising my task._

 _Will you please agree not to kill anyone from this point forward? At least not without my approval as well?_

 _May I inquire for your reasons?_

 _The others who were here...my Source Unit and my brothers. I don't care what happens to them as long as we don't kill them. But they'll try to interfere. It's just how they are._

 _Will they threaten my task?_

 _They'll give it their best shot. But if you leave them to me, I'll keep them from causing any issues. I'm just asking you to give me the chance to do that without taking their lives._

 _Sentiment, Donatello?_

 _I hope not. We've just spent all this time getting rid of it! But I do think it would cause me a significant distraction, perhaps even enough to undo these mental blocks. And if that happens, we might not have time to redo them._

 _That is a legitimate possibility. Very well. I will agree to take no more lives unless you also think it is necessary._

 _Thank you, Architect. I appreciate it._

 _You are welcome. I see in your thoughts you have no other business._

 _Yeah, I'm done._

 _Would you like to remain within the neural link, or would you prefer to separate?_

 _I'll stay here for a bit, anyway. It's easy to focus here._

 _I would not know of that, having no other form. I am content to have you remain for as long as you wish. But I will continue monitoring your vital-signs. If you remain too long, the neural-positive gel will become depleted._

 _To say nothing of my energy. I actually do need to eat and sleep sometimes and I haven't done a whole lot of either lately. You're right. I'll stay a while and then I'll get back to being organic and fleshy._

 _You make it sound very distasteful._

 _Sometimes it is, Architect. Sometimes it really is._

-==OOO==-

"MIster Mortu? Can I ask you something?"

Leo barely had to raise his voice to be heard in the tiny cabin of the ship that hurtled through space like a rocket. Especially as they had been largely silent for many hours, even Michelangelo. Though all three turtles had fallen asleep at some point, which was probably the only reason the silence lasted so long.

But now they were wide awake – and almost on top of the Architect's position.

Mortu remained close to the controls but he turned. "What's on your mind, Leonardo?"

"You said something when Master Splinter came out of meditation. Something about Master Yoshi and about Donnie."

"Yes."

Mikey looked up. "Will you tell us about it?"

"May I ask why you are curious?"

"Why wouldn't we be?" Raph frowned. "I know you're still ticked off at us but…"

"It's not that," Mortu said. He made a very Earth-like sigh. "Listen. What happened between you and Donatello, I now accept that it was not so much your fault as we had believed. The findings were clear – you were under the influence of the foreign dimension. My animosity towards you has been neutralized since then."

"You sure about that?" Raph grumbled under his breath.

But in the tight quarters, where the turtles were practically knee-to-knee, Mortu couldn't help but hear it.

"Yes, I am sure. However, the change in Donatello was not due to another dimension. It was due to a change in his situation." Mortu closed his eyes for a moment before facing them. "You may not be able to understand this, but his changes were quite significant. For you, once you returned to your home, you attempted to pick up where you left off. Donatello never had that chance. He had to begin anew here with my people."

"And we're grateful," Leo was quick to put in. "We owe you one for taking care of our brother like that and giving him a home."

"You do not understand. I did not give him a home. I gave him another life. I gave him a future, one he never had while on Earth."

"We know all about it," Raph said, his patience wearing thin. "We've seen the vids."

"Hang on." Mikey held up a hand. "I think I get it. Don let us go, right? Started to forget about us. Started to move on."

"Yes, exactly."

Leo and Raph were staring at Michelangelo. "How do you know that?" Leo asked.

"Because that's what I had to do with Mitsu," he said, half-shrugging. "It's not like she's dead, but she's gone and even if I ever see her again, it won't be the same. My feelings had to change and that changes everything else."

"You do understand," Mortu said with approval. "If you three and Master Splinter have continued to perceive hostility from me, that is my fault and I am sorry for it. But...for the last three flows, more than that, Donatello has been my own family. My only family other than...Zayton and Leatherhead." His face bent with obvious pain.

Raph's own expression shuttered. "Sorry. We didn't mean to...ya know. Bring it up."

"No, I'm glad you did." Mortu forced his voice to work. "We were, in these last months as you would call them, a group of four not unlike yourselves. Perhaps not as innately close, but loyal where it counted. United. There are things we trusted with one another that we had not shared with anyone else."

Mortu gestured with a foreleg.

"What you ask about, Leonardo, about Donatello's spiritual studies under Hamato Yoshi, this is something he viewed very privately. He told us about it, shared with us his discoveries and his interest, but it was not for ears but our own. Even Krian'daren was kept out of some of it. We were…"

"Brothers," Leo finished. "You were brothers to him."

"Something like, yes. And this cycle of loss that began when Donatello lost you and continues now that we have lost him...it is not easy to bear. And now...with Zayton and Leatherhead…it is so much worse."

Mortu's voice dropped to a near-whisper.

"I long for Donatello's own counsel, that he might help guide me through this grief. And I am afraid to wonder if he is experiencing it alone with only the Architect itself for company."

The three turtles exchanged glances. They were sad, too, but Leatherhead and the Professor had been friends, allies, family in only the broadest sense. They hurt for those deaths, but it didn't claw at them the way Donatello's absence did.

It was Raph who said what they were all thinking. "I wouldn't be able to handle it. If I were alone. Like you are now. Like...like Donnie was when we left him. I think I'd go nuts."

"As if you aren't already." Michelangelo snorted.

The levity worked and the atmosphere in the room lightened slightly.

Mortu shook himself and looked up. "I think all of us have been feeling rather similar things about the absence of Donatello, and perhaps if we work together we will have the best chance to alleviate this situation. And while there are some things I will not tell you, there are a few confidences that I feel are worth breaking."

Leo managed to smile. "Thank you, Mister Mortu. I'm sure it's hard for you, but we appreciate it. Anything that might help us save Don, or even just understand him better."

"What I will not tell you is what he learned from Hamato Yoshi, as that is truly Donatello's alone."

"Can you tell us how the shell he learned something from someone who was killed back on Earth before we were even hatched?" Raph wanted to know.

"Yes. Yoshi left behind a series of memories in something akin to the Utrom way, and Donatello was given access to them. Yoshi's memories contained a great deal of practical knowledge in the art of combat as well as some of the spiritual and metaphysical insight he had acquired."

"That's what you were telling Master Splinter about," Mikey said. "That Donnie learned some new astral tricks or something."

"Yes, though I confess I am not entirely certain how he came by some of his knowledge as he never explicitly accredited it to Hamato Yoshi. And the piece of that which I believe it may be most relevant for you to know is this – Donatello mastered the use of controlled quantum folding to create a stable pocket dimension."

Leo blinked. "Uh...come again?"

"Donatello was able, after a great deal of practice, to create a fold in space which he controlled by will alone. He could place items into this fold for safekeeping, and they would exist only within a sub-dimension which was under his control."

Raph was gaping. "How does that even work?"

Mortu made a small, human smile. "I believe it would take longer to explain than we have before we arrive. Suffice it to say that it did work and he had complete, conscious control over the pocket and everything within it."

"That's it!" Leo slammed a fist into his open hand. "That's gotta be why he was at the window!"

"Why who what?" Mikey looked at him.

"The video Mister Mortu showed us back in the lair had Don at a window in the Architect's ship. But when we got in there, he was in that tank."

"So…?" Raph drawled out the question, raising an eye-ridge.

"So! I bet Don used something in that pocket to try to escape. I mean, obviously it didn't work, but it means that he was still fighting, and still able to focus enough to invoke his astral powers." Leo's grin went wide. "It means he was still Donnie even after all that time with the Architect."

"And if he was still Don _then…_ " Raph said, also getting excited.

"Then there's a good chance he's still Don _now_!" Mikey finished with glee.

A moment later there came a beeping from the console. Mortu spun around at once.

"We're coming up on the station. It looks to me that the Architect's ship has docked."

Then he stared at the readings before typing furiously into the computer.

"What is it?" Leo asked, immediately crowding up behind the Utrom.

"I am reading just a single life-sign in the area, but it isn't on the Architect's ship; it's on the station itself."

"What does that mean?" Raph asked.

Leo stared out into space and at the ship now coming into view, the ship that had taken Don.

"It means either we're too late or Don's already working on an escape."

"The Architect will no doubt notice our presence within moments," Mortu said. "I can try to scramble the readings so it can't easily pinpoint you three."

"Can you, like, distract it for a little while?" Mikey piped up. "Then we could go over to the station and see if it's Don and get him without having to crawl all over that ship again."

"Yes," Mortu said. "I will transmat you over and cover the traces by any means I can devise. You will have less than half an hour to identify the life-sign and signal for retrieval before I will have to pull you out or risk the Architect attacking again."

"More than enough time," Raph said, low and solid.

"Good luck," Mortu said, and though he was harried, he said it with feeling. "Transmatting now."

The turtles opened their eyes in a huge room. The station had obviously been deserted for some time, as many of its fixtures were broken or partially disassembled, but there was gravity and oxygen and intermittent light in the area.

And high above, a small figure was crouching over a piece of equipment on a narrow platform.

"Donnie!"

Leo, Raph, and Mike began jumping from place to place, scaling the twentyish-story gap between themselves and the one they knew so well even at a distance, even after so long.

"Donatello!" Leo called as he sprang from a central pillar to the roof of what might have once been a house or a shop, just a few yards below Donatello's position. "Don, can you hear me?"

Donatello looked up just as Raph and Mikey joined Leo.

Leo took a half-step back as a pure, vacant look slammed into him. "Don?"

Donatello blinked very, very slowly. "Leo."

"Don, are you okay?" Raph asked, but he was held back by Leo's outstretched arm.

"Huh?"

"Donnie?" Mikey's voice was uncertain and he held onto Leo's elbow as if for support.

"Oh. Sure. Yeah. Just...need to dig out...some information."

"Don." Leo took a breath. "Don, we have to get you out of here."

"No. You can't do that. I need to do this."

"How come?" Raph asked, and he managed to keep the question mostly light and casual.

Don looked up again, but this time the emptiness in his eyes was starting to fade – to be replaced by something far colder and more remote.

"It's necessary for our plan."

"Your...plan." Leo gulped. "Donatello, the Architect...it did something to you, right?"

"To me? Not much. And what it _did_ do to me, I accepted."

Raph's breath stilled in his chest. "You _ain't_ sayin' what I think you're sayin' here, Don."

Don's eyes shifted to Raph, his head sliding on his neck in a snakelike manner. "That I have participated in some of the Architect's doings? Yes, I have. And I will continue to do so."

"Don, he _killed_ Leatherhead and the Professor and that doctor Krian'daren!" Mikey shouted.

Don blinked again. "I know. I wasn't happy about that. But the Architect had its reasons. It was wrong, but we've discussed the error in logic."

"The _error_ in...Donatello, we're talking about your _friends_! Your…" But Leo choked on the word 'family.'

"I know that better than you." Don turned back to what he was doing. "Go away."

Raph growled. "You know we can't do that! What's this Architect doin' with you anyway? What could it _possibly_ want that makes what it did okay?"

"You can't understand it," Don said absently. "It has to do with reprogramming certain universal cognitive functions so that the galaxy can finally find peace. I'd think you'd agree that's worth a few sacrifices."

Mikey sucked in a breath and made a helpless, half-broken, half-furious sound.

" _Donatello_!" Leo barked in his sharpest commanding tone. "Stop this!"

Donatello actually paused and looked up. His expression was blank, but he tipped his head to the side. "Or else what?"

That put Leo off-guard. He glanced to Raph and Mikey at either side. "What do you mean?"

Don's voice was even, almost gentle. "Why should I stop, exactly?"

"You _know_ why!" Raph shouted. "You ain't so far gone you can't tell right from wrong!"

Don shrugged. "That's not what I meant. Why should I stop – as in what would be the consequence of continuing? What will you do to me if I don't stop?"

"Bro…" Mikey gulped.

But Leonardo resolutely spoke up. "I don't want to have to fight you. You're my brother, Donnie!"

A strange, broken smile crept over Donatello's face. "Am I? _Really_?"

The very air seemed to grow chillier around them.

Donatello rose and took a step forward. "Is that why you chose Usagi's world instead of ours? Because we're _brothers_?"

Raph flinched. "Don, it wasn't like that..."

Donatello heaved in a breath as though his chest were preparing to burst.

"Is that why you _abandoned_ me? Why you _never_ intended to come back? Why you _left me to live and die alone_? Because we're _brothers_?"

Mikey's eyes watered at the gut-torn shout that grew out of Donatello's unnatural calm. "We didn't…" But he couldn't finish that lie and he knew it.

Leo took a step of his own, and only the pair right beside him could see the slight tremor he fought to control. "Don, if this is about us, if this is revenge for our mistake...I accept that. If you need to hurt us because we hurt you… I won't stop you. But you can't… Don, you _can't_ put innocent people in danger because we abandoned you! That's not who you are!"

Don's eyes had looked wild and alive for a moment, but the light in them died once more and his face went almost slack.

"You'd let me take revenge on you? For what you did."

"Ancestors forgive me, yes. I would. Attack _me_ , Don. Hurt _me_. _I_ did this. No one else." Leo's voice trembled.

Don's eyes drifted closed. "It's just like those prayer scrolls."

All three brothers exchanged glances. "What now?" Raph asked.

"Everyone saw them. But nobody understood what they meant. Nobody but me. They were a blind, a distraction. They kept people from realizing the truth." Don's eyes opened and they were almost as empty as if they were forged of plastic. "I'm going to tear them down, Leo. We will, me and the Architect, together. No more secrets. No more lies. Everything what it seems and everyone where they belong."

"Donatello, that's _not_ the answer!" Leo yelled.

"But it is. It's the only answer. I'm not going to hurt people, Leo. I'm _helping_ them. I'm _saving_ them from hurt. From what you did to me. So no one ever has to face it again."

"Donatello, if you keep on this path… I'm going to have to fight you." Leo drew his blades to hold before him. "Please, my brother. Please don't make me do this."

Donatello's expression went suddenly granite-hard. "What did you say to me when I _begged_ you to bring our family home, Leonardo?"

Leo actually faltered where he stood, rocking back on a heel as his balance betrayed him. "I…"

"What did you say to me, Leonardo? My _brother_." This last was practically growled.

The words tasted like ash in Leo's mouth and he could barely whisper them. "I know what's best for this family, Donnie. You don't. Leave us alone."

"Well, _brother_. This time _I_ know what's best. This time, _you_ need to leave _me_ alone."

"Not a chance, Donnie." Raph regathered himself and curled his body into a ready stance. "We ain't walkin' away this time."

"Going to fight me, Raphael? Going to humiliate me again? Going to try to break me?" The unnerving smile was back. "Nothing ever changes, does it?"

That doused Raph's anger like frigid water and his expression went from determination to stricken horror. "Donnie...I...I shouldn't'a done that. I'm...I'm sorry, bro."

Donatello's dead-cold eyes swept his brothers and he seemed not to hear Raph at all.

"Opposite sides. Opposite worlds. Staring at each other through mirrors and lies and a gulf bigger than the emptiness outside."

"It doesn't have to be that way!" Mikey protested.

Donatello actually scoffed at him. "We used to share New York before you left to go to Usagi's world, but even _that_ wasn't enough for you. I came to the Collective and here you are _again_. Now you've taken the one thing I thought I could keep. You've taken _everything_ away from me _again_. But I'll fight for this one. The Homeworld is _mine_ and you don't belong with them."

He turned away.

"Go home. Whatever your home is. I'll take care of the Utrom and everyone else."

"Donnie, you can't let the Architect turn you into a supervillain!" Mikey shouted. "Our Donatello would never _ever_ hurt the Utrom or anyone else!"

Raph added, "Yeah! Our Donnie would never do whatever you're doing now!"

Donatello whirled back around with a feral snarl. " _Your_ Donatello is _dead_! He _died_ the day you _abandoned_ him! You don't know _me_ at all! And what I do with the Architect or anyone else is none of your business anymore!"

"Donatello. It is time."

The three turtles froze at the voice of the Architect that rang in the cavernous room.

Donatello drew himself up. "I'm almost ready. Just one more dataset to pull off the closed network."

"Would you like me to dispose of these impediments for you while you do so?"

The brothers traded horrified glances at the consideration Don was giving that question.

Finally, Don shook his head. "No. I'll handle them myself, thank you." Then a different smile appeared – one that was frigid and hard. "I want them to see that I am not their useless, _weakling_ brother anymore. I want them to see what I have learned. What _we_ have learned together."

"I applaud your dedication to our cause. Please proceed, Donatello."

"Don!" Leo shouted, starting to move.

But he had only braced himself to jump when a light began to glow before Donatello. Leo couldn't have said what sort of magic or something else was happening, but when he saw what emerged from that flash of brilliance he drew to a frozen, horrified halt.

"Don! You can't!"

"I _can_. And so much more, Leo. _So_ much more."

Donatello lifted his Fang of the Dragon, Byakko.

Raph and Mikey darted to join Leo.

Mikey's eyes were wide. "He can't _really_ use it, right? None of them work without the amulets."

"Don't you remember?" Donatello said as he began to rotate Byakko. "Things are not always what they seem. _Especially_ reality."

His body started to glow. The purple light didn't take on the sharp lines that once denoted the energy flow of Donatello's focus and will, but rather it swirled around him like a thin shield of air with a few lines and patterns emerging only to shift and fade just as quickly.

"Donnie! Don't!" Raph's shout was strangled against a pain in his chest that Leo and Mikey shared wholeheartedly. A pain that had nothing to do with the magic and everything to do with the lost, broken, furious expression that twisted their gentle brother's face almost beyond recognition.

"Release the cleaving wind!"

Byakko spun and a blast of light and air hit the three turtles head-on, lifting them clear off their feet.

"Donatello!" Leo bellowed.

Beneath the howling torrent of wind, he thought he could hear Donatello say, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you ever had to find out about this. Take care of yourselves in the life you have chosen. Goodbye."

The light got bright and the air went even colder and Leo was only barely aware of bumping into Raph and Mikey and a gaping void inside his soul where guilt and grief had eaten his heart.

Unconsciousness was welcome.

-==OOO==-

When they were gone and the sensors in his kit told Donatello that his brothers were too far across the station to return before he would be ready to leave, he let Byakko return to the fold of reality where it was easiest to keep it and turned back to the panel. He worked in silence for several moments before the voice he had come to know so well spoke again.

"Donatello?"

"Yes, Architect?"

"Are you disturbed by the presence of your former family?"

Donatello shrugged. "I guess. But it doesn't change the plan, does it?"

"No. Unless you feel you are unable to continue."

"No." Donatello closed his hands around the nearest edge of the panel. "No, I definitely want to keep going. That's why we went to the trouble of suppressing my emotions in the first place – so I could endure something that would otherwise be really distracting. We've come so far. I'm not giving up now."

"Excellent. I am pleased to see that you are as stalwart as I had hoped."

"Don't worry, Architect. I'm seeing this thing through to the end. No matter what."


	5. Conclusions

As I said last week, this is the end of Act 6. I'll see you all back here for Act 7 next Monday.

Everybody still breathing? Here we go.

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 5: Conclusions

* * *

"Leonardo! You _must_ wake up!"

Leo groaned and rubbed at his face. "Huh?"

"Quickly! I cannot strap you into your seats and pilot at the same time!"

Leo's mind cleared at the urgency in Mortu's voice. "What happened?" he asked even as he realized they were back in the small ship they had traveled in, and his brothers were motionless beside him.

"I retrieved you via the transmat. Now, get your brothers secured or this is going to be a _very_ uncomfortable ride!"

Even as he said it, Mortu yanked the ship to one side and Leo had to brace shaky limbs against the nearest support to keep from careening into the wall. With one foot he interrupted Raph sliding along the floor and kept both him and Michelangelo from injury. As soon as the sharp turn ended, Leo bent down and all but threw his brothers into their seats one at a time, affixing the harnesses as fast as he could.

Raph was blinking as Leo buckled him in. "Leo? Wha…? Don?"

Leo shook his head. "We didn't get him."

Mikey's eyes came open wide. "Donnie's all brainwashed or something! We gotta go back for him!"

"He's right," Leo said, moving to strap into the seat closest to Mortu. "We need to get him out of there. Can you transmat him from here?"

"No," Mortu said. "Shortly after I pulled you back here, his life-sign moved back into the Architect's ship. Something has changed since we were here last. I can't get a clear reading of his bio-signal anymore."

"The Architect is disguising Don's location?" Raph asked.

"That is the most likely answer, yes."

Leo peered out the viewer. "What's going on? I don't see anybody shooting at us."

"A few moments before I was able to wake you, the Architect's ship fired upon the space station and destroyed it in a significant concussive blast. The debris is very dangerous and if we are hit, we could be killed."

"Don't we have shields for that sort of thing? Ahh!" Mikey shrieked as the ship turned briefly upside-down.

"They were fried getting us through the explosion. Hold on. We're almost outpacing the worst of it now."

"Where's the Architect now?" Raph wanted to know.

"Gone. Sped off right after blowing up the station."

"Can we follow it?"

"Not right now." Mortu grunted as the ship lurched badly sideways. "We've taken some damage which would make it dangerous to travel at a speed great enough to keep up. I've got to get us to an Utrom outpost where we can resupply and get some repairs."

"No." Leo's voice fell between them, cold and certain.

Mortu did not glance at him, but waved a back leg and Leo took that as an invitation to continue.

"Don was using a weapon. Something from a while ago. Something he shouldn't have been able to use."

"Yeah!" Mikey frowned. "Of all the things to pull out of his little pocket-of-holding, who'd have guessed Byakko?"

"Byakko?" Mortu repeated. "His mystical weapon? He turned it against you?"

"Yeah." Raph's growl was low and tight.

"I don't know what's going on," Leo said. "But if magic is in the mix, we need to get back to Master Splinter and tell him what happened. We at least need to talk to Sensei before we even think about going after them."

Mikey lifted a finger. "Why not just call him on the communicator thing?"

"Communication with the Homeworld is spotty thanks to the damage we sustained, but we can get that looked at with our other repairs."

"Okay. Step on it if you can, Mister Mortu," Leo said, his eyes falling closed. "We need to tell Splinter everything as soon as we can."

"The nearest Utrom outpost is thirty hours away. I'll do what I can." Mortu paused, then said, "In the meantime, tell me what happened while you were aboard. What did you see? Was Donatello all right?"

The three turtles exchanged glances.

"We saw somethin'," Raph said after a long moment. "But I ain't sure it was really our Donnie. And if it was...he _really_ wasn't all right."

Leo let Raph and Mikey begin the explanation, but he couldn't turn his thoughts away from something that had bothered him almost from the moment he had first laid eyes upon his brother.

 _He didn't seem like the Donatello we know. The Don we knew before everything else, I guess. Our Don would never... But...in another way, it still felt like Don. Not like he was a zombie or like the Outbreak when he was mindless. He still had a mind, his own mind._

 _What do we do if that really is Don? A new Donatello, maybe?_

 _And if it is, if this new Donatello is actually helping the Architect, what exactly are they planning to do?_

-==OOO==-

"Okay," Don said, sitting back on his heels. "I'm ready for the install if you are."

"How many sectors will you be deactivating?"

"Uh...about four? Maybe six if the process goes sideways."

"This is the largest project you have attempted yet. Do you feel entirely confident?"

Don smirked. "I wouldn't call it 'entirely' because I'm not _entirely_ sure of anything. But I'm more than reasonably certain everything will be fine. And if it isn't, your consciousness will still be in the remaining ten or twelve sectors. Even if I had to tear out all the hardware and start over, it wouldn't be that difficult to get you back into these sectors."

"True. You are far more efficient at repairs than I alone or my automated functions."

"I should hope so. That's what having a partner is all about, right?"

"Apparently. Though you are the first I have ever considered as such."

"Don't I know it?" Don huffed a laugh. "That neural link was unstable as shell until we got the bugs out of it, and it's not like you can test that on yourself."

The Architect's voice turned slightly sullen. "It would have been better calibrated had my previous subjects been willing to engage with the process."

"Yeah, well, you can't really expect anybody to be happy about you rooting around in their head, especially when the effects are either brain-destroying or straight-up fatal."

"Not to you."

"Apparently. I guess no amount of reconstructive surgery could really eliminate all the calluses from the Triceraton mind probe. Good thing, huh?"

"A very good thing, Donatello."

Don shivered. "Okay. If you're ready, go ahead and shut down in the four sectors to start. I'll begin right away and I'll log everything so you can check it when I bring them back online."

"Very well. My sensors do not reach this far, so if you run into delays, please come inform me outside the range of the project."

"Will do."

The lights flickered momentarily and then the hum of the ship all around him slowed and died away to utter silence.

Don wiped a hand across his forehead and plunged his hands into the exposed console to begin his task.

-==OOO==-

Within the first four hours at the Utrom outpost, contact with the Homeworld was restored and Mortu was able to reach Splinter who had decided to remain in Donatello's laboratory to continue his attempts to reach his son astrally.

"What news, my sons?" he asked immediately as the screen flickered to life.

"We found Donatello, Master, but he's...not himself," Leo said.

"We think he's been brainwashed or somethin'," Raph added, punching one fist into his other hand viciously. "He was talkin' all weird and he...he says he's _helpin'_ that Architect."

"But he's not hurt," Mikey put in. "I mean, other than...you know."

"They escaped us," Mortu said. "We can track them from here, but if you have gained any further intelligence, I fear the High Council will soon begin working against us."

"In that, you now hold the advantage," Splinter said. "Guardian Owens came to inform me privately that the tracking signal reaching the Homeworld is not clear any longer, as if it is being shielded in some manner. He told me to tell you that the Guardians and many of the Secrete Obscura are moving out in force, but their destination is a broad area they will have to search slowly."

Mortu smiled. "Bonani knows better than to tell you such as an unauthorized outsider. He's _almost_ breaking the rules."

"I believe he understood that as well," Splinter said, "but that his priority was better served this way."

"Well, if the High Council are chasin' their tails, where do we go?" Raph asked.

"Sensei?" Leo looked to their father. "Do you have anything that might help us?"

"I have something, but whether it helps you...that I do not know."

"Tell us," Mortu said.

"I have seen Donatello standing proud but with his spirit enshrouded by darkness. I have seen him look up to a sky of five moons, one many times larger than the others. And I have seen the earth crack beneath his feet and vanish."

"Uh…" Mikey scratched his head. "Sure you weren't just dreaming after drinking too much tea?"

Splinter's glare burned right through the communication screen and Mikey yelped and ducked.

"Five moons." Mortu's expression shifted to one unfamiliar to those from Earth. "There are only so many planets with exactly five satellites, and you said one is significantly larger? Even fewer."

"We don't really think Donnie's on a weird planet somewhere, do we?" Raph asked.

Leo shrugged. "What else do we have to go on at this point? We have to start somewhere."

"I'll plot possible destinations based on the number of moons, a solid, livable surface, and general proximity to the Architect's last known position," Mortu said. "Then, I guess we start searching until we find the right place."

"And what if we don't find it?" Mikey asked.

"We have to," Leo said. "We _have_ to find it."

 _Before it's too late._

-==OOO==-

"Testing the auditory input sensors and vocal protocols. Architect, can you hear me?"

"Yes, Donatello."

Don smiled. "Fantastic. How do you feel?"

There was a pause.

"Stable. All improvements are behaving up to specifications if not exceeding them. The new hardware seems to be integrated into my central cortex without issue."

"Good thing," Don said, running his hand over the instrument panel. "Building that much stuff only for you not to be able to move it would not be helpful."

"Control over the new hardware is necessary for our task. Failure cannot be permitted."

"You know, you say stuff like that and it comes out way scarier than I think you realize," Don said.

"I apologize. I do not intend to frighten you, Donatello."

"Eh, don't sweat it. I stopped being scared of you a while ago."

"It pleases me to hear that. I had no doubt of your skills, but it is different to experience them so directly. I am expanding into the new hardware now. Is this what it is like to grow a new limb for an organic creature?"

Don wrinkled his forehead. "I dunno. I've never grown one from scratch. Definitely not one that big." He made a few small adjustments. "Okay. Now run a full diagnostic for me, will you? I'm feeding in the exact specs for you to review. If even one screw is off, I want to know about it."

"Understood. Processing now."

Don waited, watching the results of the diagnostic on the nearest screen while the Architect worked in silence for several minutes.

At last it spoke again. "Diagnostic complete. No anomalies detected."

"How's the external shielding holding up? This would be a bad time for somebody to drop in, and I'm still not completely sure that patch-job I slammed together after the space station is going to be enough to keep us hidden in the long run."

"Shielding remains at full capacity."

Don visibly relaxed. "That's a relief. Then, not to cut the celebration short, but now that that's handled, I need some time off."

"What brings this on, Donatello? Are you overworking yourself to unhealthy levels? Or perhaps are you beginning to have doubts?"

Donatello crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Look. If seeing my brothers didn't sway me, what makes you think a whole lot of maintenance and building would?"

"It is a reasonable assumption that you may harbor conflicted feelings at this point."

He sighed. "Well, I don't. Do you want to poke around in my brain to make sure?"

"Would you permit it?"

"Would I have offered if I wouldn't?" Don shot back.

"No, you are too logical for such. Very well. I accept that you mean what you say. A neural link is not necessary at this time. But why do you require some time 'off' in your words?"

"It's not exhaustion or anything like that." Don unfolded his arms and started to pace. "Seeing my brothers didn't change my mind, but it did give me an idea. My brothers have many ways of fighting, and they know some of the same things I do about magic and energy. My father knows even more. I anticipate that they might make some attempt to stop me using those techniques. I need to prepare to defend against them."

"And you cannot do that here?"

"Not really. Magic and tech are kind of opposites. I could probably do some psychic shielding, but that's about it. What I really need is a way of resisting my family if they try to fight me. But if I try making something strong enough to do that here, I'll fry half the ship."

"I would not be in favor of damaging my ship. It was unpleasant enough being partially off-line."

"Right. So I need to take this off-planet. Somewhere with absolutely no tech. And I'll need some supplies. I've already made a list." He drew his personal device from his belt and keyed in a command to send the list to the Architect.

"Accessing. Yes, these items are not necessary for our plans. I can allocate them to your use."

"Thanks. If you'd pick a planet that is uninhabited by intelligent or overly-hazardous life where I can work, you can just drop me there with my stuff and come get me later when I'm done. I figure I'll need about the equivalent of a quarter-rhythm at most."

"You do not wish to choose the planet yourself, Donatello?"

Don shrugged. "Why should I? You know more planets than I do. It doesn't matter where I am as long as I can work without having to run for my life from dinosaurs or figure out how to find shelter in a desert. I trust you to pick a spot for me."

"I want you to keep a communicator on yourself at all times," the Architect said. "I will choose a location I deem safe enough for you to complete your task without risk of physical danger or discovery, but even I cannot plan for all contingencies. I want you to be able to summon me if you need assistance."

"That's fine," Donatello nodded. "I can probably shield one communicator enough not to kill it. You can even patrol the planet from orbit if you want. Just don't scoop me up without warning me in case I'm doing something delicate. But I'm even less interested in running into people than you are when it comes to this."

"Then I will set course at once. Will you be prepared to begin your task in a few hours?"

"Sure. I'll start putting my stuff together. And thanks. I appreciate it."

"It is nothing, Donatello. A short period of time changes no aspect of our plan, nor my task, and I wish you to do whatever is necessary to defend yourself from those who do not share our intent."

"That is exactly what I intend to do."

-==OOO==-

"Hey."

Mortu turned to see Raphael settling beside him. Mortu answered in an undertone as low as Raph's. "I thought you were sleeping."

"Nah. Can't drift off for more'n a few minutes these days." Then Raph peered at him. "What about you? Don't you need to sleep, too? You've barely quit goin' since..." He stopped.

"I know. But I am certain you can understand why rest might not come easily to me now."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for several minutes.

"It's my fault, ya know," Raph said eventually. "That it got so bad. That Don was alone."

"It was not your fault or anyone's," Mortu replied. "The foreign dimension interfered with your ability to make rational decisions regarding your own world and yourselves."

"Bein' in Usagi's world messed with us, I get that. But I'm still the one who gave up on Don and the lair after the sewer leak. I'm the one who got fed up and abandoned him. Leo was practically gone from the start and Mikey bailed pretty early, too, but I was the one who screwed it up in the end."

"Things would not have ended better had you continued going back and forth," Mortu said. "The damage done to your mind could have been far worse if you had kept up your pattern for months."

"And the damage I did to Don when he came lookin' for Leo?" Raph let out a sharp breath. "I beat him and I left him for dead."

Mortu looked at the turtle beside him. Just as he had learned to see the hidden vulnerability in Donatello – not so hidden in front of him after a few rhythms – he could see it in Raph now.

"He forgave you, you know."

Raph's head came up. "How do you know that?"

"He told me. He came to a point where what he remembered and what really mattered were the good experiences you shared, not the betrayal."

Raph snorted. "Don always did forgive too easy."

"It is a lesson I believe you will all need to master," Mortu said. "Your guilt is heavy enough to begin drawing asteroids into orbit around us."

Raph blinked. "Did you just make a nerdy science joke?"

Mortu smiled. "Did it help?"

"Yeah."

More silence.

Then, "I think I get it, in the end, though. More'n Leo and Mike. Maybe more'n Master Splinter, too."

"Get what?"

Raph stared out at the empty black of space while he answered.

"We're all survivors. Giving up ain't a thing we can do if it really matters. All of us've done crazy things to stay alive, or to win, or to hang in there when there ain't no way out. And Don comes off all soft and geeky but he _ain't_ helpless and he _ain't_ weak. He's always been right there with us, pullin' off miracles and gettin' us home safe."

Mortu waited.

"So...I ain't surprised he found a way to survive and keep goin'. Because it's what he does. What we all do."

"You don't resent the life he built for himself on the Homeworld?"

Raph looked at Mortu like he had grown extra heads. "Resent? Why the _shell_ would I? I'm _proud_ of him. Proud of him for survivin' and proud of him for showin' how smart he is even when he was all alone."

"He was never alone," Mortu said quietly.

"Thanks to you." Raph flicked his fingers against each other. "You and the others. Leo said we owed you for that. And we do. We dropped the ball, and you picked it up."

Raph took several deep breaths.

"But now I'm wonderin'...are you ever gonna give it back to us?"

Mortu was not surprised. "I don't think that's really up to me."

Raph sighed. "Guess that's true. Don's a grown turtle. When we get him back and everything, he's gonna have to pick, isn't he? Stay with you or come home with us?"

"I'm not sure those choices are mutually exclusive."

"And I'm not sure they _ain't_." Raph turned away. "Don't tell me what you think he'll pick, okay?"

"I think," Mortu said, pausing until Raphael looked at him, "that no matter what choice Donatello makes, that he will want you in his life again. I think that he deserves both worlds, not just mine or yours. And we will have to find a way of giving them to him. Together."

"Thought I asked you not to tell me what you thought," Raph said, but the was smiling faintly.

"My apologies."

Raph stretched and rolled his head on his shoulders. "Look, you ain't really piloting now, are ya?"

"No. The ship is on what you would call auto-pilot. I am simply monitoring."

"Why don't you try and get some shut-eye? I'll stay and if anything changes, I can yell for ya."

Mortu felt his own exhaustion close in on him at the suggestion, but he held up a foreleg. "You do not have to do that, Raphael."

"A'course I don't. But you...you're like Donnie's adopted brother now, right?"

"I suppose."

"And Don's still my brother." There was fierceness in his voice, fierce loyalty and fierce pride. "So that makes us somethin', too. Gimme a chance, here, will ya?"

Mortu found a warmth in his heart that was all the more potent blooming against the cold that had inhabited him since leaving the Architect's ship the first time. That had been born when Donatello had disappeared so long ago.

"Trust goes two ways," Mortu said. "You have given me yours. I give you mine in return. The helm is yours for a few hours."

"See ya in a while, Mister Mortu."

Mortu lifted on his disc from the helm but hovered across from Raphael's face. "We are _something_ , as you say. I think we are past the point of 'Mister,' don't you?"

Raph's expression bent to one of pleased surprise. "You got it."

As Mortu moved to a little shelf in the compartment big enough for him to sleep in without falling onto the pair of turtles stretched across the floor, he missed the slight movement from below.

Leonardo and Michelangelo opened an eye each. Leo smiled and Mikey gave a clumsy thumbs-up before they both settled back to sleep, leaving themselves in the safekeeping of Raph and the trust that had been offered.

-==OOO==-

Donatello closed his eyes, longing to rest his head on just about anything that was even vaguely flat and essentially horizontal. He had been up for he didn't even know how many days or hours straight and if it wasn't for the urgency pulling at his soul, he would have collapsed ages ago.

Instead, he pushed himself back to his feet and did not _quite_ stumble to the makeshift forge.

"Note to self," he said aloud, "this is _way_ harder on something other than tempered steel. Next time, bring a better hammer."

Don moved to the chunk of debris he had brought down to serve as an anvil – it was a useless lump with two flatish sides that didn't give under the heat or strength of his work and that was about the best he could do. The forge, its white fire heating the air to stifling temperatures, was at least designed for this use, though Don was fairly sure nobody had ever tried to craft anything but spaceship parts in it.

Don glanced at his three miniature prototypes, all failed in different ways but all had been useful, too.

 _Anything you can learn from gives you something. And it's not like I couldn't stand to learn a little more, even now._

But the real trick – and the real advantage – was still in his pocket dimension, so Don set to pulling everything he needed from it.

 _It's all coming together now. We're going to do this. I just have to be ready._

-==OOO==-

"We've got it!"

Three turtles stumbled out of their abbreviated breakfast to crowd around Mortu. After days of wandering aimlessly, avoiding contact with the Guardians also searching in the same-ish area, enforced idleness in a cramped space (and trying _really_ hard not to get on each others' nerves), a breakthrough was more than welcome.

"I'm getting some strange sensor readings. Nothing I can explain except if there were a cloaked ship in orbit around the sixth planet in this system. A planet that happens to have the five moons we're looking for."

"Can you send us down there again?" Leo asked. "And stay up here in case we need the distraction?"

"Yes. As much as I want to go with you and talk to Donatello myself, if I abandon this ship we might lose our means to get back to the Homeworld. I'll transmat you in a matter of minutes."

"Hang on, Donnie," Raph said as he ran his fingers over the pair of sai in his belt. "We're coming."

-==OOO==-

Donatello had been waiting for the forge to cool so it could be transported back to the Architect's ship for at least four hours when the communicator beeped.

"Donatello. I am reading the presence of three familiar terrapin life-forms on the planet's surface heading your way. A ship is apparently in orbit around the planet as well with one Utrom life-sign on board. It was shielded against my sensors until now, but the transmat process revealed it."

Don squeezed his hands tight and kicked his makeshift anvil hard. "Oh, that's perfect timing. Terrific."

"I could remove you before they reach you."

Don sucked in a deep breath. "No. I need to see them one more time. But if you'd keep them from getting too close to me, I'd appreciate it."

"It will be done."

"As soon as the forge is cool enough to dematerialize and rematerialize safely, signal me. Then you can pull me up with all my gear so we don't leave them anything."

"Agreed. The terrapins are within two hundred yards of your location."

Donatello closed his eyes, bracing himself. "Thanks. I'm on my way."

Don rose and left the shelter, striding out into the open grass and away from the three domes that had been his tent and his workshop and his forge for the last several days. The thin, wispy clouds that hung low in the atmosphere were moving high above racing a powerful wind, causing the sunlight to flicker across the field. Don felt a little bit like he was standing under a strobe light as he watched Leo, Raph, and Mikey approaching.

When they were drawing a little too close, he called out to them.

"Stop there. Don't come any farther."

"Or what?" Raph yelled back, angry already.

"I mean it. The Architect won't let you get near me."

"Don." Leo held out his hands, open and free of his blades. "We just want to talk to you. Okay?"

"Fine. Talk from there."

The three glanced at one another. Mikey tried first. "How are you, Donnie? Doing okay? Uh...eating all your vegetables?"

Don was not amused. "Say what you have come here to say. I don't even want to know how you found me. You have a matter of minutes."

"Until what?" Leo asked.

"Until I leave with the Architect. Obviously."

"No way! No way am I lettin' you walk out again!" Raph broke from his brothers and began to sprint towards Don.

Two things happened at once.

First, Donatello drew Byakko from a fold of space with the speed he had once used to draw the wooden bo from his back. With a swipe, a gust of wind caught Raphael and threw him backwards.

At the same time, a blood-red light dropped from the sky and a beam seared into the grass, cutting a wide, fathoms-deep hole in the ground. The cutting continued until there was a fifty-yard gap all the way around Donatello, isolating him and his campsite like an island on the sea.

Don never so much as moved a muscle in spite of the attack from space; Leo and Mikey managed to pull Raph farther from the area being vaporized and ducked. But they were not hurt, and there were several feet left between them and the sudden canyon when the red light cut off.

"I did warn you," Don called to them.

"What now, Fearless?" Raph asked quietly.

Leo did not take his eyes off Donatello. "We try to talk him down. Or at least get some answers."

"Talking. At least that's something Donnie's always good at," MIkey grumbled. He and Leo hauled Raph to his feet and the three faced Donatello once more.

"How'd you do it?" Raph yelled. "How'd you get Byakko to work?"

Don made a slight smile. "It turns out that all the limitations were inside my head. Once the Architect started breaking down walls, it was fairly simple to tear apart everything else that was holding me back."

Mikey was aghast. "You let that thing rewrite your brain?"

Don's expression quickly shuttered. "What makes you think I had any choice?" Then the smile returned. "However, I think we can all agree it was for the best after all."

"Definitely _not_ , dude!"

"Don, what's the Architect doing?" Leo glanced up. "And not just right now. What's its plan?"

"Do you really expect me to tell you everything? Who do you think I am – Baxter Stockman?" Don shook his head. "Our plan is none of your business."

"You're _makin'_ it our business!" Raph shouted back.

"Why?"

That simple question, the honest confusion, it brought all three turtles up short. Raph recovered first.

"Because you're our brother! Doncha remember?"

"Remember being brothers? Yes. Once. Not for a long time."

"We are _still_ brothers, Donatello," Leo said, determined and forceful. "We are still Clan. You can't change that."

"I'm fairly certain _I_ didn't have to. _You_ did that all on your own, didn't you?"

Leo almost choked on the sudden lump in his throat.

Michelangelo sucked in a breath. "I don't care what you say. You're still my bro. And my real bro is still in there somewhere under everything that whacked-out computer did to you."

"What makes you so sure?"

Raph realized what Mikey had seen and answered before he could, "You still wear the mask, Donnie. The mask Master Splinter gave you. The one we made for you after the Outbreak."

Donatello's hand drifted to the long bandana tails that floated behind him in the wind. For a moment, he ran them through his fingers as if thinking.

"Is that what bothers you?" Donatello looked across at them. "Then I will make it easier for you."

"Don't!" Mikey cried, his voice half-strangled.

Donatello reached up and calmly untied his purple mask. He balled it up carelessly and tossed it into the air. Then he swiped with Byakko, and the discarded material floated on a current of wind to land at his brothers' feet.

"I hereby renounce the Hamato Clan," he said, his voice even and cold. "In accordance with tradition, I declare myself Outcast. I am no longer a son of Hamato Splinter, heir to Hamato Yoshi."

"Donatello, stop!" Leo shouted.

Don ignored him. "The bonds of Clan are broken. I walk alone. Hamato Donatello is dead."

Raphael felt a howl of pain and denial rise up in his chest and he let it fly. " _Donnie_!"

Leonardo felt as though his body had gone numb, almost as though he had left it behind and only his spirit could move, a spirit whose nerve-endings were twisted up and fried to insensibility. But somehow he took a step forward and dropped to one knee, picking up Donatello's discarded mask. The fabric was still warm.

Behind him, Raph was sucking in air harshly and his eyes were points of dark light in his face. Mikey's own face was wet with tears.

Leo forced his knees to hold him and he stood, the familiar purple mask tangled in his fingers.

"You _can't_ do this," Leo managed not to scream.

Across an abyss that was suddenly so much colder and wider, Donatello merely looked at them. Without the mask, he seemed younger, softer. And yet there was nothing yielding or warm in the lines of his face.

"I just did."

Raph hauled in a gasping breath that sounded like it hurt. "Donnie...why?"

One of Donatello's eye-ridges raised in a mocking, how-stupid-are-you expression. "If you don't know the answer to that, there's nothing I can say to you."

Leo forced his voice not to shake. "Don, this has gone too far. You...you need to stop all this."

Donatello might have closed his eyes or it might have been a trick of the light. But he raised his chin and spoke in a flat monotone that felt almost robotic.

"It's done. There's no going back. I am Outcast, now and forever. And this is your last chance. If we meet again, it has to be as strangers. Until now I've been holding back."

Mikey choked. "Holding back?"

"If I see you again, if you interfere again, it will be the last time. That's a promise."

"We _will_ come back!" Raph shouted. "We'll come back again and again! We _ain't_ givin' up on you, Donnie"!

Donatello smiled very faintly. "We'll see."

Leonardo closed his hand around Donatello's mask. "Donatello." His voice was miraculously even and controlled. "I give you my word of honor. We _will_ keep finding you. We will keep _fighting for you_. We will never, ever stop. Even if we have to take the Architect apart piece by piece, we _will_ get you back. I _swear_ it."

Donatello's smile widened fractionally. "I look forward to it."

Suddenly a chime sounded from one of the domes behind Don.

"That's my cue." Donatello flicked Byakko in the air once before it vanished into a fold of space. He made a small, almost mocking bow. "Until the last, then."

"Donnie!" Raph cried.

A strange, reddish light formed in a nimbus around Donatello. Between one instant and the next, he disappeared. An instant later, the three domes did as well.

Leonardo found his fingers tucking Donatello's mask into his belt automatically, without his conscious decision. But even though a part of him wanted to tear it apart, to throw it down the gaping chasm that had separated them from him, to rend it apart as his heart had been rent, he didn't dare. If this was the only tie he had left to his brother, he would protect it.

Leo turned. He put one arm around Mikey's shoulders and pulled him tight. He reached for Raph with the other, and though Raph's shoulders were up and tense and he clearly did not want a hug, he allowed himself to be drawn close anyway.

"Don't give up," Leo said softly. "He's still in there. I _swear_ we'll get him back."

"How?" Raph's voice was low and gravelly and uncertain. "At this rate, it won't just be _fighting_ against 'im. At this rate, if we're gonna stop him, we might have to…"

"We _won't_ ," Leo said. "We'll find a way. We _are_ bringing Don home. Safe and _alive_."

Michelangelo looked up at them both with eyes far too dark and dismal. "I...I don't think we can."

The hopelessness, so alien in his voice, was enough to make Raph drop his fury enough to wrap his arm not pressed against Leo over Mikey's shoulders. "Of course we can."

Mikey shook his head and looked down at their feet. "I think...he was right…'cause he's always right and...we already...killed him."

" _No_." Leo's tone went sharper than his katana. "No, that's _not_ true. No matter what it looks like to us now, that is still Donatello, _our_ Donatello. I don't know what the Architect did to him, but it's not any different from the Outbreak virus. He's still our brother in there somewhere. And we're going to find a cure to get him back, no matter what it takes."

The words, though spoken with the same inflection from when Bishop's virus had almost mutated Donatello to death, cost more from Leo's heart than they had before. With the Outbreak, it had been an illness of the body that stole Donatello's mind. Now, it was an illness of the mind that had stolen his soul.

Raph shuddered for a moment before he drew himself up, physically straightening his shoulders and pulling both his brothers up with him.

"Come on. We need Master Splinter now more than ever. If we can't get through to Donnie, maybe he can."

"The Architect did say something about Sensei being Don's Source Unit that first time, right?" Mikey asked, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

"It did," Leo nodded. "And now I'm thinking that Sensei's the key to getting him back."

"So what are we waitin' for?" Raph asked roughly.

"Nothing." He hit the communicator. "Mortu, get us out of here. We need to get back to the Homeworld as fast as we can."

-==OOO==-

"Thanks for the extraction," Don said as soon as he materialized on the ship. "I appreciate it."

"Your vital-signs are stable. I assume no harm came to you?"

"Nope. Physically or mentally. Though I'm kinda tired."

"Yes. You may rest now, if you wish."

"Actually, I think I need to ask you for another favor. This one a lot...bigger."

"Does it interfere with our task?"

"No. In fact, it'll help."

"Then ask."

"First of all, can you tell where my brothers are going? Where their ship is headed?"

"Calculating. Projections suggest it is on a course back to the Utrom Homeworld."

Don smiled. "Perfect. That's _exactly_ what I was hoping to hear."

-==OOO==-

By the time the turtles and Mortu arrived on the Homeworld endless silent hours later, Splinter was waiting for them at the docking station. He had been updated as to the second conversation with Donatello while the others were en route, and he met them with a grave, concerned expression.

"My sons." He reached out and was not surprised when all three turtles folded themselves against him for a hug.

Mortu watched them for a long moment before he spoke up. "Come with me."

He led them, to everyone's surprise, to the apartment once shared between Donatello, Leatherhead, and Professor Honn'i'kedt. At the door, he said in a low voice, "This is the safest place I know."

"Yeah, but…" Raph began.

"I am aware of the emotional connotations. But there are other concerns." And he opened the door.

Raph and Mikey and Splinter had not yet seen it, so they stood taking in the space while Leo focused on Mortu. The Utrom's eyes were wrong in every way, and Leo wished he understood native Utrom expressions better so he could tell how badly off Mortu really was – but he supposed he could guess.

"What concerns do you mean?" Leo asked.

"If there was one thing I learned from Hamato Yoshi in our years together, it was that a mind in torment cannot correctly maintain the serenity to utilize their spiritual power. You say that Donatello professed multiple times to be willingly assisting the Architect."

Raph spun, suddenly furious. "You _ain't_ sayin'..."

"I'm not." Mortu held up a foreleg. "Rather, I am suggesting that there may be other powers at work that we do not understand. Powers that we must be prepared to contend against if we are going to rescue Donatello."

Mikey blinked. "You think he's not just, like, brainwashed, but also under a magic spell?"

"At this point, that is actually more likely than the alternative."

Splinter let out a breath. "Mister Mortu, it did not even occur to me to look in our lair to check for the other two Fangs of the Dragon. It is possible we will have to return to the Earth to retrieve them. For if Donatello is able to use his own, we may need the others in our possession to defend against him and to break this enchantment."

"There is no need." Mortu headed for the stairs to Donatello's room. "Donatello brought them all with him when he relocated. He said that he did not trust that they would be safe unguarded on the Earth. I will retrieve them for you. You may need them."

The turtles and Splinter fell in behind him.

"Hey." Mikey frowned. "How come you didn't tell us about them before when we told you Donnie had Byakko?"

"I did not wish to break his confidence any more than I already have. Donatello was highly protective of those weapons and they clearly had significant emotional meaning. However, that cannot stand against our potential need for them in order to save him now."

Leo looked up at the door. "Does this mean we can finally see his room?"

"It means that I can no longer afford to prevent you." And there was sorrow and heaviness in his voice.

Leo glanced at his father. _Every time we think things have gotten as bad as possible, they get worse. First losing Don, then Leatherhead and the Professor and Doctor Krian'daren getting killed and now Don is lost all over again. I'm almost afraid to find out what else can go wrong._

Splinter nodded, interpreting and sharing his son's thoughts.

At the door, Mortu stopped. He did not turn so no one could see his expression, but they could all feel himself gathering courage. Then he finally unlocked the door and moved inward.

The space at the end of the narrow room was cramped, and Mikey could only stick his head in, but they took in the sight of Donatello's room hungrily. Splinter moved to kneel on the meditation mat – obviously well-used – to peer at the altar to Hamato Yoshi. He reached forward to retrieve something and held it up for his sons to see: a picture of themselves.

Raph gulped. "He put us in the altar. Like...like we were dead."

"To him, you were," Mortu said. "Or, perhaps more accurately, he mourned you as if you were. And he learned to accept your loss in the same manner."

Leo couldn't stand to see his father's crumpled expression as he peered at the photo and the altar, so he edged around, his eyes landing on the few inventions and books on the somewhat-barren shelves. So many were familiar, from their life before Usagi's dimension. So many things he had forgotten about.

Mortu hovered over the bed. "The weapons were stored here," he said. "Along with the portal stick and the last legacy of Hamato Yoshi. I will ask you not to touch those two things. We noticed that the portal stick did not endure its third transit over the teleportal device when we returned here with you as well as we would have liked. It is fragile and likely to come apart."

Splinter looked up. "And the legacy of Master Yoshi?"

Mortu looked away. "Do not ask me for that. It is a trust I cannot and will not violate, even for you. Not unless I truly have no other choice."

"I understand."

Leo knelt down to feel for a drawer where Mortu gestured. But when he pulled it open, he froze.

"There's...nothing here."

Mortu dropped lower, almost climbing into the drawer. "There is something in the far back corner."

Leo had to practically crawl under the bed to reach whatever was there.

Behind them, Raph called, "So, the weapons are missing?"

"Yes, and the portal stick and the sphere of Hamato Yoshi as well," Mortu said. "But I don't know how such a thing could be possible. We returned the portal stick to this place after retrieving you. We locked the door upon the same occasion, and I distinctly recall seeing those items."

"What about Byakko?" Mikey asked.

"Donatello had been practicing with it for some time. He took it with him on his initial journey to find the Architect. But he left the others here, for safekeeping, I assume, knowing where he was going and the danger inherent in his aim. What can be the meaning of this?"

Leo straightened up but didn't turn to face the others. "I think I know what happened."

"What is it, my son?"

Leo took a deep breath and turned.

He held up the medallion that Donatello had earned when he became Astrocyte Donatello. A medallion he had not been wearing when they saw him either time under the influence of the Architect.

"I think Don took them. And he left this behind."

Mortu went completely still. Then he swooped down and plucked the medallion from Leo's unresisting grip.

"Get out. All of you. Now."

Leo shivered at the raw hoarseness in his tone and rose, glad that Mikey and Raph didn't resist, though that might have been the added firm glare of Master Splinter as he followed them. Last out the door, Leo glanced behind him. His last sight of Don's room was Mortu holding the medallion in his small forelegs and settling on the bed, peering sightlessly at the item that Donatello in his right mind would never have surrendered.

As the door shut, Leo heard a noise he couldn't identify and he wondered how exactly Utrom cried. However they did, he was certain Mortu was doing it now.

-==OOO==-

Downstairs, the three turtles and Splinter gathered near the kitchen.

"What now, Sensei?" Raph asked.

Splinter turned to look out the broad windows. It was early morning on the Homeworld and the sun was just risen, the sky bright and vibrant.

"My sons, you must not give up hope."

"We aren't!" Michelangelo protested at once.

"You are," Splinter returned. "All of you wear despair in your eyes. You must be stronger than this grief. You must not allow sorrow or fear to sway you. You must have courage of the most difficult kind."

Leonardo's shoulders fell. "He...he says it was voluntary. He keeps saying it. And...he broke the Clan bond." He had to fight a prickle in his eyes.

"Donatello did _no such thing_." Splinter's tail lashed. "He can leave this Clan _only_ with my permission and I do _not_ give it. Hamato Donatello is Clan now and forever, no matter the trials or temptations of the present or future. I will _not_ release him."

All three of his sons visibly perked up at that.

Splinter faced them with his hands folded behind his back.

"In my meditations, I have sensed Donatello many times, though I cannot yet reach his mind. However, there are flashes, moments of truth that leak through whatever is cutting him off from me. In these, I have seen rather a different Donatello than the one you describe."

"Different how?" Raph asked.

"I sense pain and shame. And guilt. I sense that he is lost, terribly lost, and very afraid. Whatever appearance you have seen, the true Donatello is buried deep within and he needs us more than ever."

"How can we help him when we can't even get near him, though?" Leo would have kicked something except it wasn't his home to break and he couldn't bring himself to damage something that had belonged to those who were gone. "How can we reach him? If you can't get through to him on the astral plane, we've got even less chance."

"You must trust in the bond of brotherhood that lives between you even now. No matter how it has been stretched and frayed, it remains and it is still strong. In the end, I believe it is that brotherhood that will win through, more even than my own bond of father to son."

Mikey blinked. "Why?"

"I do not know Donatello's mind as I once did, but I know him well, my sons. His love and respect for me have always been great. But it the four of you who are truly one. Your energies, your spirits, your souls – these have been honed and aligned as closely as your bodies in your years together. Between Donatello and I lies the gap of age and discipline. Between you there is none."

Leo reached to his belt and drew forth Donatello's mask. "But...he…"

"Things are not always as they seem, my son. Donatello himself has reminded you of this. You must trust that he speaks truth in that, even now." Splinter held out a hand.

It felt like ripping a part of himself away, but Leo was able to hand his brother's mask to his father.

Splinter gazed at the mask and his own emotions threatened to swamp him. "Oh my son. I sense such pain. And."

He looked up. The three turtles were surprised at the sudden excitement blooming in his face.

"Things truly are not as they seem. My sons! Do you not sense it?"

"Sense what?" Raph asked.

Splinter opened his mouth.

And a now-familiar reddish light formed in a nimbus around him. Between one instant and the next, he disappeared.

"Master Splinter!" all three turtles cried in a panic.

"No!" Leo shouted. "No, it can't be!"

"You just saw it same as us!" Raph snarled. "That's the same way the Architect scooped up Donnie!"

"And now he's got Sensei." Michelangelo's fear dropped away and he felt steady. "He's got them both!"

There was a tiny prickle of red light – and where Splinter had been standing, Donatello's purple mask reappeared.

Leo seized it and stared at it. Then he put it back in his belt.

"What are we gonna do now?" Raph asked. His rage was present, but controlled. It was either that or explode.

Leo closed his eyes. When he opened them, they shone with the diamond-hard light of his absolute conviction.

"We're not giving up. We're going to find them. We're going to save them."

"It hasn't been working so good to now," Michelangelo pointed out.

"Doesn't matter." Leo closed a hand over Donatello's mask. "This is proof. Proof that there's still hope somewhere. Proof that our Donatello is still out there. Master Splinter thought so, too."

"It ain't gonna get easier," Raph warned.

"I know it won't. But it doesn't matter. One way or another, the next time we see the Architect, we're bringing Donatello and Master Splinter home. We all walk away together, or we die trying."

He held out one hand and Raph and Mikey both put their own over it.

There was no going back.

The next meeting would end it all.

-==OOO==-

End of Act 6

-==OOO==-


End file.
